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A. 



Eunice Hopkins at the Farm-house door 


Page 7 






Dr. Grantley’s Neighbors 



ELLA BECKWITH KEENEY 

n 

AND 

ANNETTE LUCILLE NOBLE 

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3 


D 



PHILADELPHIA 

PRESBYTEKIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 

No. 1334 Chestnut Street 




COPYRIGHT, 1882, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBY'TERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 


ALL BIGHTS RESERVED. 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereolypers and Electrotypers, Philada, 


PREFACE. 


Ten years ago the Presbyterian Board 
published an admirable little book called 
Following the Mader, It was the first work 
of one who, although young in years, had 
early learned to do with her might what 
her hand found to do. The warm wel- 
come it received induced her after that to 
write many shorter articles, which have 
from time to time appeared in our papers 
for. the young and other journals, often 
anonymously. Mrs. Keeney wrote from no 
desire for a literary reputation, although her 
literary ability merited it, but, as one said 
in a notice of her first book, out of sym- 
pathy with the sore wants of sorrowing, suf- 
fering humanity, and that she might show - 


4 


PREFACE. 


the work to be done by Christian hands 
and hearts.” 

The first part of this later story of Dr. 
Grantley's Neighbors was also written by her. 
It was only one of many things she was doing 
for the Master in the vigor of her young wo- 
manhood ; but one day she laid them all down 
for ever. The summons came, and soon she 
was not, for the Lord had taken her. She 
was a person of marked individuality — a 
power in society and in the Church, for she 
had more than ordinary culture, with true 
spirituality. She knew how to win the ap- 
proval of the old and how to make herself 
attractive to the young, while she gave help 
and sympathy to the poorest and lowest who 
crossed her path. She will be long remem- 
bered for her 

“Gentle words where such were few, 

Softening blame where blame was true, 

Praising where small praise was due — 

For a waking dream made good, 

For an ideal understood, 

For a Christian womanhood.” 


PREFACE. 


5 


In regard to the following narrative, it 
need only be said that when it was left no 
intelligible notes showed how it was to be 
developed, but to the friend who finished 
it Mrs. Keeney had often said, Some time 
we will write a story together.” So at last 
it has come to be written by the two, but 
neither was with the other as she wrote. 

A. L. N. 


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DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


CHAPTER I. 


“By two wings a man is lifted up from things earthly — 
namely, by simplicity and purity.” 



NE lovely afternoon in June, Eunice 


^ Hopkins stood at the kitchen-door of 
her father’s farm-house. Before her ran 
a beaten path, past the old well with its 
“ moss-covered bucket,” down into the gar- 
den, in which lettuce and onions, currants 
and raspberries, poppies and marigolds, 
were mingled in defiance of every rule of 
landscape-gardening. At the foot of the 
garden a clear, shallow stream rippled un- 
der the rudest of bridges ; beyond were the 
‘‘ flats,” where Deacon Hopkins’s cows were 
ruminating so placidly that one might won- 
der if they had not an appreciation of the 


8 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


sunshine and beauty which filled earth and 
sky. 

Judging by Eunice Hopkins’s face, the 
outside beauty failed to fill her soul with 
peace, for her brow was wrinkled, her eyes 
troubled. She was a tall, healthy-looking 
spinster of an uncertain age, or rather of 
an age you could be certain was not young. 
Everything about her indicated a person 
who would move when the motive-power 
came from within, seldom when it came 
from without. She held in her hand a let- 
ter, but her eyes were fixed on the distant 
fiats, not as if she were watching the cows, 
but quite as if she had forgotten that such 
animals existed. At length, with an impa- 
tient Well !” she turned around into the 
great cool kitchen with its sand-scoured floor 
and green-curtained windows, through which 
came the perfume of sweet honeysuckle and 
the sleepy drone of the bees. There was not 
in the farm-house a pleasanter room than this, 
with its dresser gorgeous with clean china and 
shining pewter, its old-fashioned clock, its 
chintz-covered rocking-chairs on each side 
of the little table, which held the Bible, a 


DR. ORARTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


9 


work-basket and a pitcher full of garden 
flowers. 

Eunice laid the letter beside the Bible, 
then seated herself to sew on a pair of blue 
jean “ overalls,” saying to herself, 

I wish father would come home.” 

For some time she rocked and sewed, 
pausing to bite off her thread with a snap 
or to hold her needle in mid-air while she 
mused. She started suddenly out of such a 
fit of meditation, and scudded (no other word 
will describe the motion) across the kitchen 
into the garden-path. A neighbor’s rooster 
had scaled the fence and was about to alight 
on the strawberry-bed. Eunice, seizing a 
big stone, poised her arm to throw it. The 
unsuspecting fowl cocked his head and gave 
a saucy crow. In a second more the stone 
would have cleft the air, but a sound arrested 
Eunice’s hand. Up from the flats came faint- 
ly the deacon’s voice in singing. It was a 
cracked treble, yet it chimed in not unmusic- 
ally with the song of the birds and the noise 
of the grasshoppers. Nearer and nearer it 
came, until Eunice, now gone back to the 
supper-table, could hear plainly the words : 


10 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. • 


“ Cease, ye pilgrims, cease to mourn, 
Press onward to the prize: 

Soon the Saviour will return. 
Triumphant in the skies. 

Yet a season, and you know 
Happy entrance will be given. 

All our sorrows left below. 

And earth exchanged for heaven.” 


Poor old man ! He is tired to-night. 
He always sings coming home when it has 
been a tougher day than usual. It has been 
a hot day in the field. I won’t show him 
this telegram until after supper, for it will 
bring up old troubles and take away his ap- 
petite. When a body gets a hearty meal, 
trouble can’t take the life out of him, as it 
can when it comes on an empty stomach.” 

“Well, now, this is kind of refreshing,” 
said the deacon, coming in from a wash at 
the pump and sitting back in his great wood- 
en chair. “ It’s been a real scorcher, for a 
June day and he pushed back his white 
hair, on which the water still sparkled. 

Deacon Hopkins was a “ nice old man ” — 
at least that was the verdict of every man, 
woman and child of his acquaintance. His 
attire was always plain, his dialect provincial, 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


11 


yet a true judge of character would see in him 
the innate refinement of a gentleman, and, 
better still, that type of Christian character 
which comes only ‘‘ by pureness, by knowl- 
edge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the 
Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned/^ 

“ Yes,” said Eunice, “ I reckoned you’d be 
all tired out. I’ve made you a rousing cup 
of tea, and supper’ll be ready in a minute. 
There’s some of the lightest mufiins you ever 
saw in the oven. They look as if they were 
stuffed with feathers. You always liked 
them.” 

‘‘ Yes, them air beautiful,” said the old 
man, leaning forward to look into the oven. 
“ What a daughter you are, Eunice, to work 
for your old father !”- 

“Well, why shouldn’t I?” said Eunice, 
turning out the mufiins. “ There, now ! it’s 
ready. Eat them while they’re hot.” 

The old man drew up his chair, and, after 
asking the never-omitted blessing, partook 
of a meal which would have tempted the 
daintiest appetite. No cook for miles around 
was more renowned for housewifely accom- 
plishments than Eunice Hopkins. 


12 DR. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

She did not eat much that night, but talk- 
ed of farm-matters in a preoccupied way. 
Suddenly she burst out : 

“ I declare, Father Hopkins ! it seems as 
if I should do some dreadful thing if Grant- 
ley’s pigs and chickens ain’t kept off of our 
land. They’ve scratched and trampled my 
beds from end to end — almost , she added with 
spasmodic truthfulness. “ I never came near- 
er to anything in my life than I did to letting 
fly a stone at that speckled rooster. If you’d 
only let me wring the necks of one or two hens, 
that would be the end of it.” 

“ It would only be the beginning of it, sis. 
Don’t you remember what the wise man says 
about the beginning of strife being like the 
letting out of water. You and I would find 
ourselves overwhelmed with hatred, malice 
and all uncharitableness. No, no, let broth- 
erly love continue.” 

‘‘ It never started on the Grantley side of 
the fence,” snapped this elderly “sis.” 

“But it may, Eunice, and my constant 
prayer is that it may receive ‘an impulse’ 
from this side.” 

“ Well, it’s most uncommon hard on hu- 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 13 

man nature. I feel as if I must rebel some- 
times.’’ 

‘‘ I know it’s terrible provoking, but we 
must have patience if we would win him. 
‘ Coals of fire,’ you know — that’s the Bible 
rule.” 

‘‘Literal coals wouldn’t hurt him much,” 
sniffed Eunice. 

“ Why, daughter !” said the deacon in as- 
tonishment. 

“ I tell you, father, it would be a real sat- 
isfaction to kill that speckled rooster.” 

“ Could you reconcile it with your con- 
science as a professed Christian ?” 

“ Have a piece of pie ?” asked Eunice eva- 
sively ; adding a moment later, “ I don’t see 
as we are making much headway. You’ve 
been a-heaping Scripture coals on him for 
years and years, and yesterday, when my 
handsome guinea-hen flew over the fence, 
he shot her dead. I feel like an Old-Testa- 
ment Jew — I want an eye for an eye and a 
tooth for a tooth. I’m not clear in my mind 
how far we were meant to do the other way. 
Of course the Lord couldn’t have given a 
halfway rule, but he must have known. 


14 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


when he said all that about how to treat 
folks that persecute you and despitefully use 
youythat charity would fail sometimes. We 
are told to be perfect, even as our Father in 
heaven is perfect ; but I think that is be- 
cause it wouldn’t sound well as a rule to 
say, ‘Be ye one-half or two-thirds perfect.’ 
We can’t be wholly perfect, I don’t be- 
lieve.” 

“ I suppose,” said the deacon, in answer to 
this doubly-negative proposition, “ that it 
means we must be as perfect as we can — 
complete in patience and in good-will. That 
covers a good deal, Eunice.” 

It covered a “ good deal ” more than she 
cared to have it cover. So, thinking the 
case was not going in her favor, she changed 
the subject by saying, 

“ Judge Balcolm came here this afternoon 
to show you a letter he had written to some 
theological professor asking him to send a 
minister to occupy the pulpit next Sunday. 
I told him you were out in the west lot, but 
he said he hadn’t time to go out.” 

“ Well, I hope the Lord will send some 
one to this people pretty soon. This ’ere can- 


DB. GBANTLEY^S NEIOHBOBS. 15 

derdating is enough to kill the piety out of 
any church.” 

“You’d better hope that the Lord -will 
give the people wit enough to know the 
right man when he comes.” 

“There’s a good deal in that,” said the 
deacon, drawing back his chair. 

Eunice waited until her father was com- 
fortably seated on the west porch ; then she 
brought the despatch, saying, 

“ Here is a telegram that came this after- 
noon ; I thought I wouldn’t give it to you 
until you were kind of rested.” 

“ A telegram for me ?” repeated the dea- 
con with wide-open eyes. “Who can it be 
from?” 

Eunice handed him the telegram without 
answering. 

The deacon, putting on his spectacles, read, 

“ 8 — Ninth Avenue, New York City. 
“To Benjamin Hopkins: 

“ I am dying. If you wish to know about 
Benjamin or Benjamin’s child, come imme- 
diately. 

“ Mrs. Benjamin Hopkins, Jr.” 


16 


DR. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


The paper fell from the deacon’s trembling 
fingers : 

“ When did this come ?” 

This afternoon, about two o’clock.” 

‘‘ You’d orter have told me before ; maybe 
I could have got an earlier start if I’d ha’ 
known it.” 

No, you couldn’t. I kept the boy until 
I had read it, because I thought it might need 
an answer, and I asked him about the trains. 
You will have to go by Warren ton and take 
the eight-o’clock train in the morning. That’ll 
get you into the city in the early afternoon.” 

‘‘ It seems strange,” said the deacon, that 
she’d send for me after hiding away from me 
so many years.” 

“ Probably, now she’s dying, she wants you 
to support the child,” said Eunice. “ Will 
you take it if she wants you to?” 

‘‘Why, of course,” replied the deacon, 
looking at Eunice as if she had suddenly 
lost her wits. 

There was a long silence, broken again by 
the deacon’s voice : 

“ It would be kind of pleasant to have a 
little child in the house once more.” 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


17 


Eunice sniffed, and slapped the teapot into 
its place with more emphasis than usual. 

It must be nigh onto thirty years,” he 
went on, not noticing his daughter, since 
there’s been one here. How pleased I was 
when Benjamin was born ! I wasn’t a pro- 
fessor of religion then, and I laid all sorts of 
plans as to what I’d make of him. Your 
mother always said that boys were a great 
responsibility, and she’d rather it would ha’ 
been another girl, but I was mighty tickled 
at having a boy ; I wasn’t afraid but what I 
could bring him up. I tried my best after I 
found religion, but — ” The deacon drew a 
long sigh and was silent. 

‘‘ I’ve thanked the Lord a great many 
times,” he began after a while, “that he 
took your mother when he did. It seemed 
an awTul dark dispensation when she went, 
but when Benjamin got to going wrong, then 
I saw it was all right. It would just have 
broken her heart.” 

Here the deacon dropped into a long and 
painful reverie, from which he did not arouse 
himself until Eunice brought the Bible for 
family prayers. 

2 


CHAPTER II. 


“ Such as any one is inwardly, so he judgeth outwardly 

D r. GRANTLEY was born in Conesus 
Corners, where he grew up through boy- 
hood until he went away to study. There 
were dark rumors as to his course of life 
during these years of absence, but no one 
had any positive knowledge concerning him. 
About a year after the death of his father 
he returned to the homestead and opened 
an office for medical practice in the village. 
The years of his residence in Conesus Cor- 
ners had made him an influential but not a 
popular man. He had education, profes- 
sional skill and considerable property, but 
he was called cynical, stingy and obstinate. 
He made no pretensions to being influenced 
by any higher motive than that decent re- 
gard for morality which society demands, 
and he believed in the professions of no one 
who claimed to be actuated by motives drawn 
18 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 19 

from any higher source. He called himself 
a hater of Sham, yet he made a household 
god of Prejudice. 

The doctor’s farm adjoined that of the 
deacon, and his door was within a stone’s 
throw of the farm-house ; but between the 
two families there was not even the pretence 
of intercourse. Had the dislike been on the 
side of the deacon, it would have caused less 
surprise, for it was generally understood that 
Dr. Grantley had in his student days enticed 
Benjamin Hopkins from home and intro- 
duced him into that course of life which 
ended in his ruin and death. People, for- 
getting that some natures hate more bitterly 
the man whom they have injured than they 
do the man who injures them, wondered at 
Grantley’s hostility toward the deacon, of 
whom he usually spoke as “ that old hypo- 
crite.” 

The doctor’s family consisted of Mrs. Tib- 
bits, the housekeeper, and Helen Grantley, 
the orphan daughter of a cousin. Mrs. Tib- 
bits was a small, weak-voiced widow, whose 
perpetual weeds seemed to have a mouldy, 
funereal smell, and whose manner was very 


20 DR. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

depressing. She was not morose, yet all her 
attempts at cheerfulness were so sickly that 
one learned to dread her efforts in that di- 
rection. 

On the evening when our story opens Mrs. 
Tibbits rapped softly on the door of Dr. 
Grantley’s library and whispered, with the 
hesitancy of one confessing a crime, that sup- 
per was ready. The doctor was reading a 
paper by the window, and did not answer or 
rise until he chose ; then, going through sev- 
eral rooms better furnished but far gloomier 
than any in the Hopkins farm-house, he 
took his place at the table. Mrs. Tibbits 
was there, sheltered by a tall teapot, fluttered 
as usual lest he should miss some edible he 
wanted or espy something he did not want. 

‘‘ Where’s Helen ?” he asked ; adding, as 
she opened the door, ‘‘ Why don’t you come 
when you are called?” 

Helen did not look at him, but dropped 
listlessly into her seat and began to help 
herself to bread and butter. It was a pecu- 
liarity at this table that no one attended to 
another’s wants. The doctor helped himself 
first, then shoved the plates toward the others 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


21 


if he felt so disposed; if not, they reached 
over and helped themselves. Dr. Grantley 
had no excuse for being a boor. On the rare 
occasions when a stranger sat at the table he 
behaved with the utmost propriety. As for 
Helen, she was too proudly shy to be rude, 
and was by instinct lady-like. She was a 
sallow-faced girl, about fifteen years old, with 
masses of light-brown hair wound ungrace- 
fully about her head. She had strong, well- 
cut features and large blue-gray eyes, which 
were, when kindled by excitement, her one 
beauty. This was not often true of them, 
for her life was most monotonous. She had 
few acquaintances, and no friends. 

When tea was over the doctor pushed 
back his chair and started for his own 
room. 

“Dr. Grantley,’’ began Helen abruptly, 
for she had learned by experience that this 
man would not endure circumlocution, “can 
I learn something this summer — Latin or 
drawing or music?” 

“ Or dancing or wax-flowers,” he sneered, 
looking at her a moment. “I suppose it 
don’t make any difference what. Yes, you 


22 


BB. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS, 


can learn as much as you have a mind to 
learn/’ 

“ Where?” 

‘‘ In the library and garret. There are 
five hundred volumes, more or less, in the li- 
brary, and several boxes of pious trash in the 
garret, left by your father. What do you want 
to throw away money on other foolery for ?” 

“ I ought to have teachers,” she answered 
with a sort of sullen composure. 

‘‘ Nonsense ! What good would it do you 
to know how to whang on a piano from 
morning until night or to crock up paper 
with charcoal ? Better learn something 
available, so that you can earn your own 
bread and butter. The world is too full 
of genteel paupers.” 

Without perceptible emotion of any kind 
Helen turned away. Dr. Grantley’s consent 
would have surprised her far more than his 
refusal did. She helped Mrs. Tibbits wash 
the dishes, then she climbed the stairs to her 
own room. She did not fling herself down 
and cry passionately, feeling herself to be a 
neglected genius; she had not read novels 
enough for that. 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


23 


Helen had been an inmate of the doctor’s 
family for eight years. His father had tak- 
en her when a girl of seven from the orphan 
asylum where she had been placed after her 
father’s death. On the farm Helen had 
grown up in a state of isolation which under 
other circumstances would have been impos- 
sible. As she never went to church or to 
school, she had no acquaintances among girls 
of her own age. The few who made friendly 
advances were repelled by a shyness which 
they mistook for pride. 

‘^She is just like the doctor,” was the vil- 
lage verdict: ‘‘she wants to be let alone.” 

Had her relations with the deacon’s family 
been different, Eunice would soon have drawn 
the young girl out of this unnatural state, but 
on her first arrival at Conesus Corners, Helen 
had been forbidden to speak to any one who 
lived at the Hopkins farm-house. The dea- 
con, who loved children, made many vain ef- 
forts to win the confidence of the little girl, 
whose sad face touched his loving, fatherly 
heart, but Helen always ran away without 
answering. 

Dr. Grantley seemed to think that when 


24 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


he had provided Helen with food and rai- 
ment he had discharged his whole duty to 
her. Mrs. Tibbits, who had once been a 
country school-teacher, instructed her in the 
rudiments of arithmetic, vSpelling and geog- 
raphy. But these lessons, which brought 
no pleasure to either teacher or taught, were 
discontinued so soon as Helen began to as- 
sert her own will. Dr. Grantley had a fine 
library, and Helen made her own many 
books seldom appreciated by girls of her age. 
She did not share Dr. Grantley ’s prejudice 
against religion, for she did not find that 
irreligion rendered him pleasing in any re- 
spect. She thought of theoretical Christian- 
ity as something like science, outside of and 
beyond her — something which time might 
make clear to her or might not. In fact, 
everything that troubled or puzzled Helen 
was in her present every-day life. It was 
irksome and void of incitement toward any- 
thing better. 

She seated herself this evening by the 
window, and, taking up an arithmetic, be- 
gan to figure out mentally some of the sim- 
plest problems. It would do no good, she 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. . 25 

thought half bitterly, to grieve about the 
doctor’s reception of her request. 

Her room was furnished with old-fashion- 
ed, ill-matched furniture, but it had an air 
of individuality about it. There were some 
books, and shells, birds’ nests and mosses 
picked up in her rambles. There were one 
or two rough sketches of natural scenery — 
not the work of a genius, but showing talent 
enough to justify her desire to learn to draw. 
There was a dingy portrait of a dark, sol- 
emn-looking man who Helen had been 
told was her father. She had always re- 
garded the portrait with a sort of incredu- 
lous wonder, he seemed to belong to a time so 
far in the past. She found herself studying 
his face instead of the arithmetic. He was 
probably a minister ; he was a very religious 
man, and would have brought her up to be 
religious. How would it have seemed? A 
religious Helen Grantley ! She tried to fancy 
herself in that character, and failed — not so 
much because of the strangeness of the idea 
as because she had no vivid conception of any 
religious character whatever. 

Moved at last by a new curiosity, she rose 


26 


DR. GBANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


up and searched for a concordance which she 
had once brought down from among her fa- 
ther’s books in the garret. She found in it 
the word Eeligion,” and a reference to James 
i. 27. She had no Bible, but getting one from 
Mrs. Tibbits’s room, she read : Pure religion 
and uhdefiled before God and the Father is 
this, To visit the fatherless and widows in 
their affliction, and to keep himself unspot- 
ted from the world.” 

“A very well-sounding definition,” she 
thought. “ I wonder what it would mean 
worked out in my life? — ‘To visit the 
widow and the fatherless.’ ” Mrs. Tibbits 
and she herself were the only persons of 
either class of whom she knew, and they 
were not exactly in affliction ; if they were, 
it would only amount to staying at home. 

“ To keep myself unspotted from the 
world.” She laughed outright at this. 

The world, if by that were meant its ex- 
citements and temptations, lay so far away 
from her! If it meant her world, the roof 
which sheltered Dr. Grantley and Mrs. Tib- 
bits, she had nothing to do to keep “unspot- 
ted.” Neither of these persons exercised an 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 27 

elevating influence on her character, yet she 
felt no inclination to accuse them of ‘^con- 
taminating her. It was a strange thing to 
say that she did not need religion ; but if she 
had it, what would she do with it ? She really 
could not see. What it would do with her 
was a question which did not occur to her to 
ask. Then, having the Bible in her hand, 
it served as well as the arithmetic to while 
away the time ; so she opened it again : “All 
things are full of labor ; man cannot utter 
it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor 
the ear filled with hearing “ I have seen 
all the works that are done under the sun ; 
and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of 
spirit.’’ 

Helen was studying these verses when the 
pages slipped through her fingers and she 
opened to another place: “Let the beauty 
of the Lord our God be upon us : and estab- 
lish thou the work of our hands upon us.” 

She did not quite enter into the spirit of 
the first, but she understood it; before the 
second she stopped questioning. Was there 
a truth behind it? It must be something 
vast, wonderful. The first verses were like 


28 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


a flat, gloomy, limitless landscape ; the sec- 
ond like a beautiful golden barrier, suggest- 
ive of inner glories, yet unyielding, impene- 
trable. The beauty of the Lord ! She 
could have found a meaning in the power or 
the goodness of the Lord, but the ‘‘beauty 
of the Lord,’’ and the prayer that this beau- 
ty might be upon one ! The longer she 
thought of the expression, the less she made 
out its meaning. Then, again, if all labor 
was vanity and vexation of spirit, why 
pray that the labor should be established ? 
After all, the arithmetic was more intelligi- 
ble than the Bible. 

She pushed the book to one side, and, 
leaning out of the window, watched the 
deacon sitting on his porch : 

“ He is pious, I suppose, for he is a deacon 
in a church. I wonder, what religion means 
to him ? Perhaps too he knows what the 
‘ beauty of the Lord ’ means.” Then with 
a yawn, Helen added, “What a tiresome 
thing life is ! I believe I’ll go to bed.” 


CHAPTER III. 


“For divine charity overcometli all things, and enlargeth all 
the powers of the soul.” 

T he next morning Eunice was astir be- 
times, for there was the milk to be taken 
care of, the chickens to be fed, breakfast to 
be prepared and cleared away, and her father 
to be made ready for his journey. Eunice 
was fully equal to the emergency, and by 
seven o’clock she was driving old Bet to the 
railroad-station. 

“ I wish you were back safe and sound,” 
she said as they drove along. “ I don’t 
think much of old folks skirmishing around 
the country alone. If it hadn’t ha’ been for 
the milk and chickens, I’d ha’ gone with 
you.” 

Law me !” said the deacon, I can look 
after myself for a while yet. Besides, don’t 
you suppose that the Lord can take just as 
good care of me in New York as in Conesus 

29 


30 J)R. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

Corners? Can’t you trust your old father 
with the Lord, Eunice?” 

‘‘ Yes,” replied Eunice, in a tone which 
said plainly, I suppose I have got to do 
it.” 

Many were the injunctions which the good 
deacon received from his daughter while they 
waited in the little station. He was not to 
put his head out of the window, not to get 
on or off the cars while they were in motion ; 
he was to look out for his pocket-book, and 
not to share his seat with any smart-looking 
man, for “ he was sure to be a sharper,” and 
so on until the coming of the New York 
train. 

In spite of his assurances to Eunice, the 
deacon felt a little nervous as he took his 
seat in the cars. New and not wholly pleas- 
ant were the experiences of the day, but five 
o’clock found him, carpet-bag in hand, climb- 
ing the stairs of a dingy tenement-house on 
Ninth Avenue. 

‘‘ I wonder which room it is ? I’ll try the 
first,” he murmured. — Does Mrs. Benjamin 
Hopkins live here?” he inquired of a lady 
who answered his knock. 


DR. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


31 


“ She does/’ replied the lady. I suppose 
this is Mrs. Hopkins’s father-in-law?” 

“ Yes, ma’am. How is she ?” 

“ Weak, but much excited at the prospect 
of seeing you. Would you like to bathe 
your face before you go in ?” 

‘‘No, thank ye; I took a wash at the 
d4p6t. I’ll go right in, if I may.” 

The lady led the way through a room 
barely furnished with a few kitchen-utensils 
to a closed door. Opening it softly, she said, 

“ Mrs. Hopkins, Mr. Hopkins is here.” 

The deacon, looking through the open 
door, saw lying on the bed a young woman 
whose difficult breathing revealed the dis- 
ease which was wasting her life. 

“ I am so glad you have come ! All the 
time I have feared that you would not,” she 
cried as the deacon went toward the bedside. 

“ I have been ready to come for five years, 
my daughter,” said the deacon simply. 

“Call you me your daughter? I thank 
you much.” The great brown eyes of the 
sick woman grew bright, and she reached 
out her thin hand to the deacon, who laid 
it tenderly between his two horny palms. 


32 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


^‘Are you not my daughter, the wife of 
my dead son, my only son?’’ 

But you did not like him to marry me. 
I have not been of your sort. You think I 
could not be a good wife to him. I meant 
to be good, for I loved him so much ; but 
I not know what good is until this lady ” 
— with a wave of her disengaged hand to- 
ward the lady, who was quietly arranging 
bottles on the table — ‘‘ she told me about Je- 
sus. She has been — oh, so good to me !” 

You must not waste your strength talk- 
ing about me,” said the lady, smiling. ‘‘ You 
have much to say to your father, and we can- 
not tell how long this strength will last.” 

It is true, it is true. At the beginning 
I will begin. This country is not my own 
country. In France I was born, and there 
lived until I was sixteen. Then my mamma 
died, and my papa came to America. He 
tried many things to live. Sometimes we 
play at the French theatre. Then papa, he 
hire some rooms and make them pleasant for 
gentlemen to come and play cards, and I 
sing to them and make them drinks. One 
time there come Dr. Grantley and your son. 


DR. GRANTLF.Y^S NEIGHBORS. 33 

After that they come many times, many 
times — not always to play, but to see me — 
and after a time they tell me that they love 
me, all two of them, for I have been pretty 
in those days,’’ said the invalid, a faint flush 
stealing into the thin cheeks. ‘‘ I not love 
Dr. Grantley — I love your son. But my 
papa says I must marry Dr. Grantley, be- 
cause he have money and an old rich papa 
who must not live long. But I care not for 
his money or his rich papa ; I love him not 
at all. Then my papa has become angry. 
He says I will marry Dr. Grantley ; I say 
I will not. Then Benjamin and I run away, 
and we are married.” 

E-eally married ?” asked the deacon anx- 
iously. 

Yes, really married — by a priest of your 
Church, a Prep — Prep — ” 

Presbyterian ?” suggested the deacon. 

“ That is it — a Presbyterian priest.” 

Presbyterian minister,” amended the 
deacon, who did not like the combination 
of words. 

A Presbyterian minister, and he gave 
me a writing. I have it laid away with 


3 


34 I)R. GRANT LEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

Yolande’s things. Then we go to Cincin- 
nati, and try to get work. There Benjamin 
was ill — oh, so ill! When he get better 
he talks about you. He says you are so 
good, and he talks about his sister Euneece, 
and wants to see her; and he talks about 
the country, and he longs for it. One day 
he makes me find little Bible his mamma 
give him /ears, years gone, and he reads it. 
Then he calls me, and he reads me about a 
young man who takes all his money and go 
far away and spends it all, until he so poor 
he have not to eat ; then he says he will go 
back to his father, and all ragged he gets ; 
and his father see him a long way off, and 
runs out of the house down into the street 
to meet his wicked young son, and puts his 
arms around his neck and kisses him. He is 
so glad — so glad to have his son again ! In 
Benjamin’s eyes, as he read, there came big 
tears, and he said he himself like that — ” 
Prodigal,” suggested the lady as the 
speaker hesitated for a word. The deacon 
was too choked for utterance. 

‘‘Like that prodigal, and he would do the 
same thing ; he would go to his father’s 


J)R. GRANTLF.Y^S NEIGHBORS. 


35 


house. Then I said, ‘ You are not like that 
prodigal ; you have a wife ; you have no 
right to go leave her.’ Then he said he 
no leave me, never ; his father’s house and 
heart big enough for all. Then I say he 
have no money to go, and he says he can 
send to you. Then I cry much, much, and 
I say I will no go to his father as one beggar. 
Benjamin he tries to get me to go, but I only 
cry more, more, until he tear up the letter he 
begins and says we go not. I am so sorry 
now for this !” she faltered, her hand caress- 
ing the deacon’s bowed head ; “ but in those 
days I was so afraid of you and of Benja- 
min’s sister Euneece. 

“After a while Benjamin gets better; then 
the baby comes, and Benjamin he wants to call 
her Euneece, but I say, ‘ No ;’ she must be 
Yolande, for that is my name, and the name 
of my mamma, and of my mamma’s mam- 
mas, back I know not how far? Then Ben- 
jamin say, ‘ We will name her Yolande 
Euneece but I call her always Yolande. 

“ We could have much more money, but 
my husband never lets me play in the theatre 
after I marry him. He is the one to earn 


3 () DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

the bread, he says, and he works hard. We 
have small rooms, but so clean and bright ; 
and by and by the baby make Benjamin 
want to show her to his father, she grows 
so pretty. I promise we all go when we go 
not quite so poor as beggars. Benjamin’s old 
friends come sometimes to see him, but he is 
not glad ; he never calls me to sing. One 
night I am with the little child sewing when 
gentlemen call in the little parlor. I hear 
soon loud talk like a quarrel, then a pistol- 
shot. 1 rush in : Benjamin bleeds on the 
floor, and Dr. Grantley stands over him 
with the pistol.” 

‘‘ Orantley gasped the deacon. 

“ Yes, Dr. Grantley,” whispered the wo- 
man, whose horror-filled eyes seemed again 
to behold the scene she was describino:. 

“ You ought not to talk any more now,” 
said the lady, coming to wipe her forehead, 
on which the death-sweat was already stand- 
ing. ‘‘ You must take some wine and rest a 
little.” 

I dare not,” cried the dying woman. 
“ I have short time to live and long to say ; 
I must talk.” 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


37 


‘‘ Go on if you can,” said the deacon, in a 
voice so changed that both his hearers won- 
dered. 

I threw myself down beside Benjamin, 
and when I called his name his eyes opened 
and his lips moved. He whispered, ‘ Baby 
so they brought the baby, and when he look- 
ed out at us his eyes grew tender-like and he 
tried to speak. I put my ear to his lips, and 
I heard, ‘ Father ! God, have mercy T He 
motioned as he would kiss the baby, and I 
put her down to his face, so near her little 
golden curls were dipped in his blood. O 
mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! the curls of my 
babe in the blood of her father !” cried the 
woman, shaking as witli an ague. — ‘‘ Wine ! 
more wine !” she gasped ; ‘‘ my strength go 
fast. — When I saw this I became as one 
dead, and when I again knew I was in bed. 
Then came there to me a man, who also was 
present, who said I must not tell that Dr. 
Grantley had the pistol. I said, ‘ I shall tell 
it ; I shall have his life for my Benjamin’s 
life.’ And he talks — oh, much talk — and 
he says that I have no money for me and 
my child — that if I shall not tell, that Dr. 


38 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

Grantley will give me money. He takes 
out a roll of bills. Then I fling away his 
money, and I say, ‘ I will not sell my hus- 
band’s blood for money and the man went 
away. 

‘‘ But after a time he comes again, he and 
another man whom I know, and they all two 
talk, and they say how Dr. Grantley have 
run away, so I cannot get him, and it was 
pure accident, but if I make fuss the trou- 
ble will be theirs, instead of Dr. Grantley ’s. 
Then the first man, who has been good to 
Benjamin and me, he says he have import- 
ant business in New York, and if I make 
trouble he will have to stay as a witness, 
which makes him much annoyance. He 
says also that he glad I take not Dr. Grant- 
ley’s money ; I shall need not so long as I 
make no fuss. Then I am wild, wild, with 
the talk of all two, and I say, ‘ I can do 
nothing but go to New York.’ So I come, 
and he is very good to me, and he sends me 
money many times until I get work. But 
for a long time I have heard not from him, 
and I think he be dead. After I be in New 
York I remember me that you are Benja- 


DR GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 39 

min^s father and that he loved you ; so I 
find an old letter telling where you live, 
and I write you that Benjamin is dead, but 
I let you not know where I live, for I think 
you are a hard man. I find not my papa, 
for whom I look, but I grieve not very much, 
for he was little good to me. So Yolande 
and I live here years, years. Then I take 
sick, and I know I will die as died my mam- 
ma, and my heart it breaks for my little one 
whom I must leave ; and I have much fear 
to die, for I have not any religion. Then 
comes this lady : she talks to me of Jesus 
— talks until I love him, so that then I fear 
not to die, but I fear for Yolande to live. I 
tell the lady all my life-story, and she says 
she will send for you. I have fear that you 
would come not,” she continued in a voice 
which grew ever weaker, ‘‘ but God is so 
good !” 

‘‘ Can you forgive Dr. Grantley ?” asked 
the deacon, leaning forward. 

“Yes, now. All these years my heart is 
so bitter, bitter, toward him I curse him 
day by day. Now I can pray for him ; but 
it was not at once, only after long time-— 


40 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


not until the lady read from the holy Book. 
— Will you read me those words again, 
please? This makes me need them.” 

The lady in a clear, sweet voice read, 
“ Let all bitterness, and wrath, and an- 
ger, and clamor, and evil-speaking be put 
away from you, with all malice : and be ye 
kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiv- 
ing one another, even as God for Christ’s 
sake hath forgiven you.” 

‘‘ ‘As God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven 
you,’ ” repeated the deacon slowly. “ Yes, 
yes, we must feel that God helps us to do so.” 

There was a moment’s silence. Then the 
deacon leaned forward, and, taking again in 
his the hand he had dropped, said, 

“ Daughter, God has made a special prom- 
ise to hear the prayer of two who are agreed. 
There is no one in the world who can pray 
for Dr. Grantley as you and I can. Let 
us pray.” 

Falling on his knees beside the bed, the 
deacon prayed. Had his prayer been for 
his only son, instead of being for that son’s 
destroyer, he could not have pleaded more 
earnestly. 


BR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


41 


‘^Slie is dying!” cried the deacon as, ris- 
ing from his knees, he looked into the face 
of his daughter-ill-law. 

“ I think she will rally again,” said the 
lady, applying restoratives. “ You had bet- 
ter go into the other room a while ; I will 
give her rest and air.” 

“Air?” exclaimed the deacon, wiping his 
forehead ; “ I’d like to know where you 
will find it here. If we could only have 
had her at the farm months ago, we might 
have saved her.” 

The lady shook her head : “ It might have 
prolonged her life, though I have doubts 
even of that, from what she has told me. 
I judge it is the family disease: mother, 
grandmother, aunts, all died of it.” 

“And the little girl, is she delicate too ?” 
asked the deacon anxiously. 

“ I cannot tell ; she is the picture of health 
now. She has gone out with my daughter, 
but she should be back by this time.” 

As the deacon, buried in painful thoughts, 
sat in the kitchen, the outer door opened 
and a young lady and child entered. 

“ Is that my grandpa ?” cried the child in 


42 DB. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

a clear, ringing voice, stopping short at sight 
of the deacon. 

“ Yes, dear, I’m your grandpa.” 

Yolande came near and studied fixedly 
the deacon’s face. The scrutiny seemed sat- 
isfactory, for, leaning her hand on his knee, 
she said, 

‘‘ Take me up in your arms, grandpa.” 

The deacon had gone through much that 
day — gone through all with outward com- 
posure — but the words of his little grand- 
daughter, Benjamin’s child, unsealed the 
fountain of tears which had been frozen by 
the story of her father’s death. Lifting her 
in his arms, he pressed her close to his heart, 
while the tears fell fast on the brown curls. 
Yolande showed no astonishment ; possibly 
she was accustomed to baptisms of tears. 
She only patted softly the furrowed cheeks 
of her grandfather, whispering, 

“Don’t cry, grandpa; Yolande will love 
you.” 

When the deacon had mastered his emo- 
tion he looked down into the face lying so 
trustfully on his bosom to find in it some 
resemblance to his son. He found none; 


DB. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 43 

it was the face of the mother — the same 
great brown eyes, but filled with joy instead 
of suffering ; the same flexible mouth, with- 
out the lines which pain had drawn; the 
same golden-brown hair, not closely cut, as 
was the sick woman’s, but falling below the 
waist in a mass of ringlets. The deacon 
sighed. Benjamin’s daughter, had she re- 
sembled her father, would have lost the 
beauty she now possessed, yet the deacon 
would have been quite as well pleased had 
some of the homely features of his own 
family been reproduced in the little one. 

Why don’t m.amma ask for me ?” said 
Yolande, raising her head from her grand- 
father’s arm. ‘‘Miss Mary said I was not 
to go to her until she asked for me. I want 
to go ! I want my mamma.” 

“Your mamma is very tired; you must 
let her rest,” said the deacon, drawing Yo- 
lande’s head into its place. 

Later in the evening the dying mother 
rallied, and talked again with the deacon 
of her plans and wishes for her child ; but 
when the morning sun shone into the dingy 
tenement-house it found Yolande an orphan. 


CHAPTER ly. 

“ For not every desire proceedeth from the Holy Spirit, ev«n 
though it seem unto a man right and good.” 

T he Rev. Justus Halsay was in a quan- 
dary. The evening mail had brought 
him the following letter: 

“Deak Halsay: 

“ Returning home after an absence of 
some days, I find the enclosed letter await- 
ing me. Can’t you go? I believe your 
engagement at Litchville was only for three 
months. Do go on Sunday if you possibly 
can. You see, they rely on me for a sup- 
ply. Drop me a line by return mail. In 
haste, 

“ Edwin E. M a ecus.” 

The enclosed letter was written in a stiff, 
cramped hand, and ran thus : 

44 


DR. GRANTLKY’S NEIGHBORS. 45 

To THE Rev. Edwin E. Marcus, D. D. 

“ Esteemed Sir : 

‘‘It having pleased Almighty God to in- 
capacitate for labor the Rev. Peter Martin, 
who has gone in and out before this people 
for the last fifteen years, it devolves upon 
me, as chairman of the committee on pulpit- 
supply, to seek for a pastor who shall take 
his place and break to us the bread of life. 
Believing that you, sir, are a man of sound 
views, I feel assured that any one whom you 
would recommend would preach sound doc- 
trine, whether men will hear or whether 
they will forbear. Our pulpit will be un- 
supplied next Sabbath ; can you send us a 
candidate ? I would not so far trespass 
upon your valuable time as to request an 
answer to this epistle ; so, unless I hear to 
the contrary, I shall depend upon you for a 
pulpit-supply next Lord’s Day. 

“ Yours in the bonds of the gospel, 

“Zechariah Balcom.” 

The three months for which Mr. Halsay 
had been engaged by the Litchville church 
would expire in three weeks, when the ab- 


46 


])R. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


sent pastor would return, so the prospect 
of another change was rhost pleasing to the 
young minister. He would find no diffi- 
culty in supplying his own pulpit during 
liis absence, for a minister visiting in Litch- 
ville was only too glad to occupy it. The 
question- which was wrinkling Mr. Halsay’s 
brows was, ‘‘What sermon shall I take?” 
There was no time to prepare a new sermon, 
and a selection from those previously written 
was difficult to make. The Rev. Justus felt a^ 
natural anxiety about this his first candida- 
ture, and was desirous of preaching his best. 

There lay before him twenty-nine clean, 
unrumpled sermons, with the subject writ- 
ten neatly upon each cover, and lower down 
a date and place of delivery. Nine were his 
best seminary efforts ; these he put aside 
without examination. The remaining twen- 
ty, written during the time he had supplied 
the pulpit at Litchville, were quickly sorted 
into two piles : 

“These are my best eight; now for the 
best two.” 

The next selection was made more slowly, 
but at last he laid out three, saying. 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 4 '! 

“ I would be satisfied to preach any one 
of those. There is my Egyptian sermon : 
‘ Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater 
riches than the treasure in Egypt.’ That 
sermon represents two weeks’ hard work ; 
I made the notes for it during my last va- 
cation. I studied Bunsen, Uhlemann, Lep- 
sius, Champollion, Wilkinson, and I don’t 
know how many more. If I could only use 
the seminary library now ! When I want 
to look up a subject I am sure not to have 
the books. Many times I have a vague rec- 
ollection of what I want; five minutes in a 
library and I’d be all right. I was trou- 
bled to get this sermon short enough, I had 
so many notes from my readings. When I 
first wrote it out it was sixty minutes long. 
Of course that would not do. Finally, I 
cut it down to thirty, but that made the 
practical part very short. The ‘treasures 
in Egypt’ were so interesting that I had 
only a few moments for ‘ the reproach of 
Christ.’ We will call that my scholarly 
sermon, for scholarly it certainly is. 

“ Tliis is my poetical sermon : ‘ So the 
winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the 


48 im. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

flowers appear upon the earth ; the time of 
the singing of birds is come, and the voice 
of the turtle is heard in the land. The fig 
tree putteth forth her green figs, and the 
vines with the tender grapes give a good 
smell.’ It’s full of metaphors and similes; 
then it has that exquisite poem of Words- 
worth’s. What an advantage to a minister 

to be a good reader ! Prof. G used to 

say he never heard even a professional read- 
er render Wordsworth better than I did. I 
think I’ll take that for one. Now for the 
other ! Shall I take this one on Egypt or 
this one: ‘Therefore by the deeds of the law 
there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: 
for by the law is the knowledge of sin’? 
Shall I be poetical and scholarly or poetical 
and logical? Positively, I can’t decide. I 
am tempted to do as I used when a boy — to 
shut my eyes and take the one my finger 
falls on. I’ll do it.” 

With a smile at his own childishness the 
Pev. Justus closed his eyes, waved his fore 
finger in the air, then let it fall on the out- 
spread sermons. 

“Ha! ha!” he laughed, as, opening his 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 4 ^ 

eyes, he found his finger resting on one of 
the rejected twelve ; ‘‘ that illustrates the 
foolishness of such tests. What sermon is 
this? ‘The Love of Christ.’ Oh yes, a 
good sermon, if by good one means a good- 
doing sermon. Several persons have told 
me that it had helped them in their Chris- 
tian life. I never realized more clearly what 
the love of Christ meant than when I was 
writing that sermon. But it is not at all the 
sermon to take when candidating; there is in 
it nothing original or fine. One needs to take 
a sermon that shows him at his best, for — ” 

Mr. Halsay stopped suddenly, while a 
crimson flush mounted to his forehead. Has- 
tily pushing back the sermons, so that the 
“ best eight ” and the “ rejected twelve ” lay 
in utter confusion, he fell upon his knees with 
the cry, 

“ O my Master, forgive me ! I have con- 
secrated myself to thy service, and now I 
forget thy service in self. I am to speak for 
thee to immortal souls whom I may never 
meet again on earth, yet I think neither of 
them nor of thee. I want to show well my- 
self- — to impress them with my intellectual 


OU DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

ability. Take from me all thought of self; 
let me forget the messenger in the message. 
Help me to choose such sermons as shall do 
the most good. Let me, O my Master, win 
some soul to thee, reveal to some soul the 
boundless depth and breadth of thy love. 
Grant this, and the people may, if it be 
thy will, call me a fool. Forgive and help 
me.^’ 

Arising from his knees, he began in a dif- 
ferent spirit a second examination of the ser- 


mons. 










CHAPTER Y. 


“There is scarcely anything wherein thou hast such need to 
die to thyself as in seeing and suffering those^ things that are 
contrary to thy will ; especially when that is commanded to 
be done which seemeth to thee inconvenient or useless.” 

S ATURDAY afternoon found Eunice and 
old Bet waiting at the station. 

“ There they are exclaimed Eunice as 
the deacon and Yolande descended from the 
cars. 

Well, how do you do, Eunice ?” said the 
deacon, mounting with difficulty into the 
chaise. “ This is our little girl, Benjamin’s 
child. — Yolande, this is your aunt Eunice.” 

“She’ll have to sit in your lap, father,” 
said Eunice, scarcely noticing the deacon’s 
introduction. “ Now, are we all ready ? — 
G’lang !” 

Eunice Hopkins was one of the few people 
who can refrain from asking questions, so the 
story which the deacon dreaded to tell was 
not called for until supper was over, the work 

51 


52 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

done up ” and Yolande tucked in the little 
bed which Eunice had prepared for her in 
her own room. Then Eunice heard all with- 
out any of those outward signs of emotion 
which her father had expected. During his 
narration she asked several questions, but 
^ when all was told her only remark was, ‘T 
always knew there was a black side to it. 
— The clock struck ten some time ago ; we 
had better go to bed,” handing the deacon 
at the same time his Bible and spectacles. 

It was well for the peace of her father that 
he did not see Eunice rise from her knees and 
sit bolt upright in her chair during his fer- 
vent petition for Dr. Grantley. 

We must be good to the child for Ben- 
jamin’s sake,” said the deacon, a little troub- 
led by Eunice’s manner. 

“ I shall try to do my duty by her,” was 
Eunice’s rather unsatisfactory reply as she 
lighted her candle to go up stairs. 

Beaching her room, she placed the candle 
on the table and sat down by the window. 
Eleven, twelve, one, rang through the silent 
house, but Eunice did not move. The candle 
sputtered and went out, but she did not even 


JDB. GEANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


63 


notice it. The first gray light of the dawn 
found her sitting in the same place. The 
sight of her father bringing in some wood to 
start the fire aroused her to the activities of 
life. Rising noiselessly, so as not to awake 
Yolande, who was still sleeping, Eunice 
changed her afternoon alpaca for her work- 
ing dress and went down to make ready the 
breakfast. When she entered the kitchen 
her father was standing in the east door. 
The deacon had never read rferbert’s lines 
beginning, 

“O day most calm, most bright — ” 

possibly he would have thought them too 
fanciful if he had done so — but the same 
emotion which moved the poet to write those 
quaint, sweet words was thrilling the deacon’s 
heart this morning. 

‘‘ Did you ever think, Eunice,” he said, 
turning around as she entered the room, 
that the whole earth knows when Sunday 
comes ? The very sky looks bluer, the grass 
greener. Just look at that robin singing loud 
enough to burst his throat ! Don’t you s’pose 
that he knows to-day is better than yesterday ? 


64 


DB. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBOBS. 


It always seems to me as if the dumb creeturs 
had stood by and heard the Lord bless the 
seventh day and hallow it, and the first ones 
had told their young ones, and so on down. 
I ain’t at all sartain that these dumb creeturs 
don’t know a great deal more than we think 
they do. I’ve seen some ’mazing ’cute ones.” 

The deacon subsided into philosophical re- 
flections upon the probable limitation of brute 
intelligence, from which he was interrupted 
by Yolande, who came dancing in, holding 
up her unbuttoned dress with both hands. 

‘‘ Law me, child !” said Eunice, surprised 
out of her silence, ‘‘ I was coming up to 
dress you pretty soon.” 

I can dress myself,” replied the little 
maiden with dignity, ‘‘only I can’t button 
up my dress ; but grandpa can do that,” 
running over to him with a skip, hop and 
jump. 

“ Hush, hush, child ! to-day is Sunday.” 

“Isn’t Sunday a nice day here?” asked 
Yolande, stopping short. 

“ Yes, dearie, the nicest day of all the 
week.” 

“Why must I hush? why can’t I jump?” 


DB. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


55 


“Because it’s a holy day. ‘In six days 
the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea 
and all that in them is, and rested the sev- 
enth day : wherefore the Lord blessed the 
seventh day, and hallowed it,’ ” repeated the 
deacon reverently. 

“ Oh ! I see,” said the child. “ Poor God 
work hard, get tired and want to rest, just as 
mamma used to. Sometimes she said it tired 
her to see me jumping. Is that why God 
don’t want me to do so to-day?” 

“ Not exactly,” answered the deacon, smil- 
ing at the child’s fancy. “You jump up in 
my lap and I’ll tell you about it. You see,” 
he began, when Yolande was comfortably 
settled, “that God in the beginning made 
everything — ” 

“ Did he make you and Aunt Eunice ?” in- 
terrupted Yolande. 

“ Yes, but not in the beginning — not till a 
long time after.” 

“How long ago did God make every- 
thing?” 

“Oh, thousands and thousands of years 
ago.” 

“And hasn’t he got rested yet? How 


56 DB. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBOBS. 

tired he must have been cried Yolande in 
astonishment. 

‘‘ I did not say he was tired. If you keep 
talking so I can’t tell you anything about 
it.” 

I won’t say another word,” said Yolande, 
pressing her rosy lips tightly together. 

“ Well, as I was a-saying, after God had 
made everything he stopped and blessed the 
seventh day ; and he wants all his people to 
stop working on that day and think about 
him, because when they think about him 
they love him, and God wants them to love 
him because he loves them so.” 

‘‘But I can love God when I am jump- 
ing-” 

“ But s’pose your aunt Eunice and I 
should go to skipping and jumping, do you 
think you could think about and love God 
while we were doing it?” 

“ No,” replied Yolande, quite certain that 
the sight of her grandfather and Aunt Eu- 
nice skipping and jumping would drive all 
solemn thoughts out of her mind. 

“ Well, you mustn’t do anything to keep 
you from thinking about and loving God ; 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 57 

and if there’s anything you can do, and 
love God while you are a-doing of it, you 
mustn’t do it if it is a-going to keep other 
folks from thinking about and loving him. 
Would you like to learn a Bible-verse about 
Sunday?” 

Yolande assented. 

“ It’s a pretty hard one, but I learned it 
when I was a little shaver about as large as 
you be. I’ll repeat it to you : ‘ If thou 
turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from 
doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and 
call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the 
Lord, honorable ; and shalt honor him, not 
doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own 
pleasure, nor speaking thine own words : 
then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord ; 
and I will cause thee to ride upon the high 
places of the earth, and feed thee with the 
heritage of Jacob thy father : for the mouth 
of the Lord hath spoken it.’ ” 

Before the deacon had answered Yolande’s 
questions as to what the verse meant, Eunice 
called them to breakfast. 

When breakfast was over and the kitchen 
restored to its Sabbath order, the deacon 


58 DR. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

took his Bible and began turning over its 
leaves to choose a chapter for family prayer. 
His choice feel upon the third chapter of 
the First Epistle of John. 

Eunice, wrapped in painful thought, paid 
no attention to the reading until she was 
startled by these words : “ Whosoever hateth 
his brother is a murderer ; and ye know that 
no murderer hath eternal life abiding in 
him.” She started from her chair with a 
smothered exclamation. 

The deacon paused in his reading and 
looked over his spectacles surprised. 

“That speckled rooster is in the straw- 
berries again,” said Eunice, coolly settling 
back into her chair. 

The deacon drew a long sigh. He was 
both astonished and grieved to find his 
daughter's mind on such a trifie. With a 
half-unconscious perception of Eunice’s need 
he had chosen this chapter, so full of exhor- 
tations to brotherly love, but Eunice seemed 
to care more for a few strawberries than for 
these solemn words. If all the speckled 
roosters in the neighborhood had gathered 
in the deacon’s strawberry-patch, their pres- 


BB. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBOBS. 59 

ence could not have disturbed his peace this 
morning. 

“ Whosoever hateth his brother is a mur- 
derer/’ kept sounding in Eunice’s ears. It 
seemed to her that the words stood out clear- 
ly before her eyes everywhere she looked. 

The deacon, going out- doors a few mo- 
ments later, found Eunice leaning against 
the wood-house door. 

‘‘ Why, Eunice,” he remarked, “ you’ve 
got one of your bilious turns a-coming 
again, ain’t you ? I thought you looked 
kind of yaller all the morning. You’d 
better lie down a while.” 

Eunice went to her room, but not to rest. 
She sat still and thought until the time 
came to prepare Yolande for church, and 
she drew a sigh of relief when the depart- 
ure of her father and Yolande left her in 
the longed-for yet dreaded solitude. After 
watching them until they had disappeared 
down the road she went back to her bed- 
room. She closed the door; then, taking 
from the stand-drawer a nail, she ran it in 
over the latch. Whom she expected to 
keep out by this patent lock she could not 


60 DB. GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBOBS. 

herself have told. Placing her Bible upon 
the stand, she sat down before it. 

‘‘ Whosoever hateth his brother is a mur- 
derer; and ye know that no murderer hath 
eternal life abiding in him.’’ Did she hate 
James Grantley? Eunice was too honest 
with herself to attempt any denial : she 
hated him as the man who had ruined both 
in body and soul the brother whom she 
idolized. This morning the image of the 
boy Ben arose before her — a bright, fun- 
loving boy, revealing no tendency to evil 
courses until he fell under the influence of 
James Grantley. How fond she had been 
of Ben ! She remembered how, when he 
was a little fellow in calico frocks, she, the 
ten-year-older sister, had laid aside every 
penny which came into her hands that Ben 
might have toys and candy. Later her 
love became ambitious : Ben should be a 
minister. She had not in those days thought 
much of the spiritual qualifications, but she 
knew that an education was necessary ; so 
she had scrimped and saved, worked early 
and late, to gather the necessary means. 
She had laid aside the first dollar when she 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 61 

was fifteen. Money was not plentiful at 
the Hopkins farm-house, but at thirty Eu- 
nice had five hundred dollars in the War- 
renton bank. She made her last deposit in 
February; in March, Benjamin ran away 
from home with James Grantley. 

There had been times during the last years 
when she had thought bitterly of her disap- 
pointed hopes. This morning they did not 
even come into her mind. One absorbing, 
horrible thought banished all others — the 
brother whom she loved as she loved no other 
being was a lost soul. She had known for 
four years that Benjamin was dead, but had 
known no more. Never until last night had 
she realized how the hope that there had been 
time for repentance had taken possession of 
her. Her father’s story had destroyed the 
last shadow of hope. 

The very facts which caused hope to spring 
up in the heart of the deacon had destroyed 
it in the heart of his daughter. The deacon 
liked to think of Benjamin reading the story 
of the Prodigal Son and longing to come 
home to the innocent life of his boyhood. 
Eunice shrank from all this with positive 


62 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

pain. To her it was the last striving of the 
Spirit, the last call, which Benjamin had re- 
fused to hear. No, he had not refused to 
hear. He had heard, and might have obey- 
ed had it not been for that French woman 
— the ‘‘ French woman ’’ and James Grant- 
ley. Bitter was the hatred which filled Eu- 
nice’s heart toward these two. Had it not 
been for them her brother might be leading 
an honored, useful life. And they, the guilty 
ones, would they receive the punishment due 
their sin ? No. The “ French woman ” was 
in heaven, as the deacon believed ; James 
Grantley would repent and be saved. Eu- 
nice could not believe that God would suffer 
a good man like her father to be so impress- 
ed to pray for a man unless he intended to 
grant his prayers. For the last few years 
Deacon Hopkins had prayed often for James 
Grantley. He had sought to exorcise by 
prayer the first bitterness from his own heart. 
Each additional injury received seemed but 
to increase his fervor. James Grantley would 
be saved — Eunice was sure of that; James 
Grantley and the ‘‘ French woman ” would 
spend an eternity rejoicing in the love of 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


63 


God; Benjamin, whom they had lured to 
ruin, was lost. To this she must say, “It is 
well Well that the brother whom she lov- 
ed so tenderly was lost ? 

Could she say, “ It is well ? Eunice’s 
logic was conclusive. She could^ because 
she must. 

“ There is a God ” was a truth bejmiid all 
question in Eunice’s creed. This truth went 
further than her creed ; it entered into her 
very being. This God must be just and 
must be almighty. 

Lacking either of these attributes, he would 
fail to be God. Had God given Benjamin a 
fair chance ? Eunice must admit that he had. 
Born into a Christian family, surrounded on 
every side by good influences, he had volun- 
tarily turned his back on them and chosen a 
life of outbreaking sin. Even then God did 
not leave him ; even in his sin the Spirit 
had called — called only to be rejected. No ; 
Benjamin Hopkins, standing in the presence 
of his divine Judge, could plead no injustice 
in his sentence. But could not Benjamin’s 
sister, seeing the salvation of others more 
guilty than Benjamin, cry out. 


64 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


Why ? O my God, why 

She did thus cry, but the heavens vouch- 
safed no answer, so Eunice came back to her 
theology. 

God, being God, could will no final injus- 
tice ; being almighty, he must be able to carry 
his will into execution. Final justice must 
be done to every creature in the universe. 
Could she in reason ask more? Could she, 
a finite being, instruct an infinite one ? Was 
she, who knew not what an hour would bring 
forth, wiser than He who knew the end from 
the beginning? Could she not leave herself 
and all dear to her in the care of a just, all- 
knowing God. 

must,’’ was Eunice’s answer; but only 
after hours of struggle could she say, “ I 
will.” 

Even after she could acquiesce in the will 
of God she did not forgive. It seemed to 
her that she had never so hated James 
Grantley. The depth and bitterness of her 
hatred terrified her. 

O God,” she cried in agony of soul, I 
hate him, and I cannot help it.” 

Rising from her chair for the first time 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


65 


since she had seated herself before her Bible, 
she fell upon her knees. She was still pray- 
ing when she heard her father’s voice calling 
“ Eunice !” at the chamber-door. 

When, on his return from meeting, the 
deacon did not find Eunice down stairs, he 
suspected part of the truth, and when Yo- 
lande told him that Aunt Eunice’s door was 
locked, his suspicions were confirmed. He 
persuaded Yolande to take an afternoon nap, 
and while she slept he prayed. Little as 
Deacon Hopkins understood Eunice’s state 
of mind, he felt that she needed help, and 
how could he help her more eifectually than 
by prayer? 

As hour after hour passed, and still no 
sound came from Eunice’s room, the deacon 
grew alarmed. Eunice had seemed ill that 
morning ; perhaps she was worse. Possibly, 
although that would be an unheard-of thing 
in Eunice’s life, she had fainted. The dea- 
con clambered up the stairs and called, “ Eu- 
nice ! Eunice !” 

Eunice opened the door. The deacon, 
coming in, was startled by the look of her 
face. Nothing could make Eunice Hopkins 


66 


DR. QRANTLFA ’S NEIGHBORS. 


white, but to-night her face was an ashy gray 
and there were dark rings around her eyes. 

“ My poor daughter !” said the deacon, 
laying his hand upon her shoulder. 

The Hopkinses were not demonstrative. 
That touch on the shoulder meant more 
than an embrace would mean in some fam- 
ilies. To the surprise of both her father 
and herself, Eunice burst into tears: 

‘•'Oh, father, I hate him, and I can’t help 
it!” 

“ Pray, Eunice, pray ! That is the only 
way we can drive hatred out of the heart. 
When Benjamin went away there was a 
whole week that I could get no enjoyment 
out of religion. My heart was full of hatred. 
One day I read, ‘ You can’t hate the man for 
whom you pray.’ Said I, ‘ I’ll try that ;’ and 
I kept a-praying until all the hatred went 
out of me. Now I mourn over James Grant- 
ley ; I must see him repentant.” 

“ But, father, can you bear the thought of 
his being saved when Benjamin is lost ?” 

“ Because one soul dear to me has missed 
heaven, shall I wish another to miss it too? 
Don’t say that Benjamin is lost. There are 


DR. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


67 


SO many things that make me hope for the 
best Then, seeing the look of sad incredu- 
lity in Eunice’s face, the deacon shrank from 
submitting to her unbelief the hopes so dear 
to himself. “ We must leave him in the 
arms of a loving Father, Eunice.” 

“ We must leave him in the hands of a 
just God,” she replied. 

‘‘More than just, Eunice — more than just. 
Remember that he loved us so that he sent 
his well-beloved Son to suffer and die, that 
we might live. That was mercy, not mere 
justice, Eunice. It is hard,” continued the 
deacon after a pause — “ harder than anybody 
but you and I can know — but we must trust 
God ; we must say, ‘ Though he slay me, yet 
will I trust in him.’ Can you say that, Eu- 
nice ?” 

“ I can.” 

“ Let us try now.” 

They repeated the words — the deacon with 
heartfelt earnestness, Eunice with a sort of 
grim decision in her tones. 


CHAPTER VI. 

“In judging of 011161*8 a man laboreth in vain, often erreth 
and easily sinneth ; but in judging and examining himself he 
always laboreth fruitfully.” 

S UNDAY at Dr. Grantley’s was unlike 
other days, chiefly because the dinner 
was better. Mrs. Tibbits wore a fresher cap 
and a breastpin with somebody’s hair in it ; 
Helen was accustomed to sleep, to read and 
to take long, aimless walks. 

Coming into the dining-room this morning 
a while after the late breakfast, Helen found 
Mrs. Tibbits dressed for going out. 

Where are you going ?” she asked. 

‘‘ Well, I promised sister Sarah that I’d 
go over to meeting this morning. They are 
going to have a new minister at her^ church 
to-day, so I thought I’d go and see what he 
is like. I was brought up to attend Sunday 
services, but lately I’ve got sort of out of the 
way of all such things.” 

68 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 69 

I believe I’ll go too,”, exclaimed Helen. 

“ Oh no, don’t !” gasped the widow faintly. 
“ That is, I mean the doctor would find it 
out, surely, and take on about it at a dread- 
ful rate. He don’t believe in such things.” 

“ You can go alone, Mrs. Tibbits, and I 
will take all responsibility off of you by 
going upon my own account, though if we 
were to go together I don’t think the doctor 
would accuse you of being the leader.” 

“ But what makes you want to go at all ?” 
asked the widow. ‘‘ I presume it will be 
awfully hot in the church : I should think 
you’d rather take your usual stroll to the 
woods.” 

‘‘I suppose I am actuated by the same 
lofty motive which moves you — curiosity. 
I want to see some of my fellow-creatures. 
You are good as far as you go, but one 
small woman don’t go far in some cases.” 

With an uneasy sense of having set on 
foot an enterprise that might not redound 
to her comfort, Mrs. Tibbits departed. Hel- 
en brushed her hair, mended her gloves and 
put on her best attire, which was by no means 
so fine as that of the farmers’ daughters in 


70 DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

the neighborhood. Then, with a dim idea 
that she might need a Bible, she searched 
for Mrs. Tibbits’s, and with it in her hand 
started up the long, shaded hillside to the 
church. Helen was often self-absorbed, but 
seldom self-conscious ; so the fact that she 
was going among strangers did not intim- 
idate her. It was rather late when she 
reached the church, and as she stood wait- 
ing in the little entry the sexton saw her. 
Deacon Hopkins’s pew was always open to 
strangers, and in it the sexton seated Helen. 
Her first feeling was of annoyance at find- 
ing herself seated next the deacon, but her 
interest in the service soon made her for- 
getful of all else. Justus Halsay had that 
morning no more attentive hearer than the 
unexpected occupant of the deacon’s pew. 

The sermon was over ; the man who pro- 
fessed to speak as an ambassador from the 
almighty Creator of the universe had de- 
livered his message; the people who pro- 
fessed to receive him as thus sent had heard 
— heard with eyes keenly observant of any 
violation of pulpit propriety. The Conesus 
Corners church was willing to pay for man- 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 71 

ner ; why should it not see whether the 
present candidate could furnish it ? So 
some of the congregation observed how 
many times Mr. Halsay used his left hand, 
how many times his right ; whether he 
spread his fingers “ like bats’ wings ” or 
gave them a graceful curve; whether he, 
as did the last candidate, committed the 
shocking indecorum of putting his hands 
in his pantaloon pockets. Others, more 
intellectually inclined, noticed his pronun- 
ciation, his choice of words or the struct- 
ure of his sentences. 

Of course in all this attention to details 
the subject-matter must suffer some neglect, 
but even those whose consciences would not 
have allowed them thus to have listened to 
their own pastor justified themselves by 
thinking, “ He is a candidate.” 

“ How do you like the new minister ?” 
asked Anna Dunlap of Bell Haton as the 
girls gathered in a group before Sunday- 
school began. 

I don’t like him at all. He is too ve- 
hement. I like perfect repose, perfect re- 
pose, in the pulpit. Besides, I don’t believe 


72 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


he had any pocket handkerchief. He never 
showed one during the whole sermon, and, 
if you’ll believe me, once I saw him wipe 
the perspiration from his upper lip with his 
fore finger. Shocking, was it not?” 

Miss Bell was one of the few young ladies 
of Conesus Corners who had been away to 
boarding-school. In consequence of her 
year at Ellington she considered herself 
qualified to pronounce judgment upon any 
subject whatever. 

I hope they won’t call him,” she con- 
tinued, “ for he has a horrid profile. That 
young student from Princeton who preached 
two weeks ago had the most exquisite nose 
I ever saw. I’d come to church just to see 
his profile, it was so like that photograph 
of Apollo which used to hang in the sem- 
inary parlor. I do hope they will call him. 
But,” she added with impatience, “ they 
won’t, for Judge Balcom did not like him. 
You know he stopped with the judge, and 
at dinner the judge put him through a the- 
ological examination. I may not get it very 
straight, for I don’t profess to be a theolo- 
gian. The question that settled the matter 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 73 

was something like this : ‘ If a new-born 
babe should die, would it be saved by the 
atonement of Christ or because it was not 
a partaker in Adam’s sin ?’ I don’t know 
what the minister’s opinion was, but, any- 
way, it did not suit the judge, who said the 
young man was tinctured with the error of 
Pelagius, whatever that may be. I heard 
him telling father about it last night. He 
said he could not reconcile it with his con- 
science to call him. I think it mean that 
Judge Balcom has found fault with the the- 
ology of every candidate we have had,” con- 
tinued Miss Bell, with the digression, ‘‘ Did 
you see that Grantley girl out? What a 
looking bonnet she wore ! She never goes 
anywhere, so what do you suppose started 
her out to-day? Wasn’t it a good joke 
for the sexton to put her in the deacon’s 
seat ?” 

‘‘ Why shouldn’t he put her there ? The 
deacon always offers his seat to strangers.” 

‘‘ Why, Anna Dunlap ! have you lived all 
your life at Conesus Corners and don’t know 
that Dr. Grantley hates Deacon Hopkins? 
I don’t suppose that Grantley girl would 


74 DR, ORANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

have sat there for anything if she had 
known where she was in time to act.’’ 

“ She seems to be talking very pleasantly 
with him now,” said Anna. 

“ Why, so she is ! What does it mean ? 
Who is that child that sat with the deacon 
this morning ? Isn’t she a perfect beauty ?” 

As the deacon and Helen approached the 
group the deacon paused. 

“ I am trying, Anna,” he said, addressing 
Anna Dunlap, who was a special favorite of 
his, to get Miss Grantley to stay to Sunday- 
school. Eunice is sick — one of her bilious 
turns — and Mr. Halsay will teach the class. 
I think he’ll be a good teacher. I’d like to 
stay myself, but then you young folks don’t 
want an old man like me ’round,” added the 
deacon with a kindly smile. 

‘‘Do stay. Miss Grantley,” said Anna 
cordially ; “I am sure you would like it.” 

Helen hesitated. She had not thought of 
staying to the Sunday-school, but why should 
she not? She would see more people, and 
people were interesting. Besides, she would 
like to hear the minister talk, and see if the 
Sunday-school here was like the one she re- 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 75 

membered at the asylum. So, after a little 
urging on Annans part, she consented. Mrs. 
Tibbits, who was seated among the visitors 
in the back seat, was wholly overcome with 
amazement when Helen walked away with 
Anna Dunlap to her place in the class. 

“Well, judge, how do you like Mr. Hal- 
say?” asked Deacon Hopkins as the two 
walked homeward. 

“ H’m ! a tolerable sort of a sermon — no 
originality, no particular power. We want a 
man that will take right hold of men and com- 
pel them to believe — a man that will preach the 
doctrines. This Halsay gives milk for babes ; 
we want the strong meat of the gospel.’’ 

“ But what are the babes meantime a-going 
to do ?” asked the deacon, smiling. “ It may 
be that I’m a babe in Christ myself — some- 
times I am afraid I am nothing more — but 
that sermon did me good, the young man 
seemed so earnest. His prayers, too, were so 
good. When he asked the Lord to bless his 
sermon I felt sure he would. Then he didn’t 
pray all over the universe, but asked for just 
what I wanted. I’d be satisfied to have him 
called.” 


76 DB. OBANTLEY’S NEIQHBOBS. 

“I don’t know about that,” replied the 
judge, taking a long side-step that he might 
crush an unfortunate caterpillar warming 
itself in the June sunshine. “ Unless I am 
mistaken, he is inclined to Arianism. I have 
been reading a refutation of Price’s sermons, 
and it strikes me that there is a great similar- 
ity between Mr. Halsay’s views and those of 
that Socinian. It may be only a seeming 
similarity. You cannot always decide upon 
a man’s theological views from one sermon. 
I shall listen closely to-night, and endeavor 
also to have some conversation with Mr. 
Halsay before he leaves us. Dr. Marcus, to 
whom I wrote, is a very sound man. I inti- 
mated to him in my letter that we who have 
authority in this matter did not propose to 
take to ourselves any teacher who would lead 
the people astray ; I trusted he would send 
a man with whom no fault could be found. 
But how would you explain this expression, 
as used by Mr. Halsay? He said — ” 

But the deacon, who feared that any ex- 
planation might prove him guilty of some 
ism, interrupted the judge by turning to 
speak to a man just passing: 


DR. GRANTLEr^S NEIGHBORS. 


77 


‘‘ Good-morning, Mr. Potter ; glad to see 
you out. How^s your family?^’ 

‘'Pretty smart, thank’ee. Mother don't 
get out much now-a-days. We are begin- 
ning to feel our years. We have to pay for 
these 'ere ‘ crowns of glory,' " touching the 
straggling gray hair that fell over his coat- 
collar. 

“ You forget," said the judge sententiously, 
“ that gray hair is a ‘ crown of glory ' only 
when found in the way of righteousness." 

The red deepened in the old man's cheeks, 
but he made no reply. 

“ There is a gospel-hardened sinner," com- 
mented the judge as Mr. Potter passed out 
of hearing. “ He don't seem to have any 
feeling. I have talked to him a great many 
times, but it does no good. He is utterly 
given over to unbelief." 

“ Oh, I can't think so," expostulated the 
deacon. “ He seemed quite tender when his 
little grandson died. He has such a good 
wife ; I'm sure her prayers will be answered." 

The judge shook his head doubtfully, but 
as they had reached his gate he made no 
other reply. 


CHAPTER VII. 

“ Without tlie way there is no going ; without the truth there 
is no knowing ; without the life there is no living,” 

H elen GKANTLEY was delighted 
with the Sunday-school. Justus Hal- 
say was a keen observer, and during the 
opening exercises he studied carefully the 
class which he had been requested to teach. 
Helen was, he concluded, a visitor, for she 
seemed at once unfamiliar with the ways 
of the school. From the uncertain way in 
which she turned over the leaves of her 
Bible when the superintendent gave out a 
reference he judged that she was not famil- 
iar with the book. When he came to teach 
the lesson he gave the references in the four 
Gospels to the hesitating ones, those in the 
Old Testament and Epistles to those who 
had found readily the superintendent’s verses. 
From the manner of reading he formed a suf- 
ficiently accurate opinion of the intellectual 

78 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 79 

ability of the reader, so that he knew of 
whom he could safely ask questidns. Helen 
surprised both herself and the class by talk- 
ing much and well. So skillfully had Mr. 
Halsay worked that when he made a practi- 
cal, earnest application of the lesson to their 
daily lives he had the entire attention of 
his class. No one was giving half her mind 
to the application — the other half to the 
mortifying reflection that she had made a 
fool of herself. 

“ If you will wait a moment. Miss Grant- 
ley,^’ said Anna Dunlap after the school was 
dismissed, ‘‘ I will go part way home with 
you.” 

“You do not live in this direction, do 
you ?” asked Helen, who thought she knew 
at least the names of all her neighbors. 

“ Oh no ; we live the other side of the 
village, but I promised Laura (that’s my 
sister, who has gone away) that I would 
bring this book to Maria Wells.” 

“ Oh, that invalid girl ?” 

“Yes; do you know her?” 

Helen shook her head, returning, “I 
heard Mrs. Tibbits say there was some one 


80 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


near us who had not sat up for a number 
of years.” 

‘‘Ten years,” said Anna; “she fell and 
hurt her back when she was fifteen, and 
since then she has never sat up at all. That 
was ten years ago, for she is just Laura’s 
age. She has to lie fiat on her back; she 
can’t even be propped up with pillows.” 

“ How can she read, then ?” asked Helen. 

“ Oh, she can’t read herself ; her mother 
reads to her. Sister Laura used to go often 
when she was at home.” 

“ I should think she would want to die,” 
said Helen, reflecting what sucli a life would 
mean to her. 

“ Oh, Maria is very cheerful. I don’t see 
how she can be so, but she is. Here we are 
at the gate ; won’t you go in ?” 

Helen was out to study people. A girl 
who had lain on her back for ten years, 
and yet was cheerful, would be worth going 
a few extra steps to see; so she said, 

“ Yes.” 

In response to Anna’s knock a pleasant 
voice called out clearly, 

“Come in.” 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 81 

Anna opened the door and went in, but 
Helen paused a moment in astonishment on 
the threshold. She had not imagined that 
the small, unpainted house could be so beau- 
tiful within. Helen knew nothing of taste- 
fully-arranged apartments. The little living- 
room of the Widow Wells was the first home- 
like room she had ever seen. Her scrutiny 
did not descend to details. If it had done 
so, she would have found that everything 
was very plain. The carpet was of rags so 
faded as to meet the modern requirement of 
being unnoticeable. The table and chairs 
were of painted wood, but the first had a 
dainty cover and the chairs bright cushions. 
Around the room were dozens of pretty tri- 
fies, such as Helen had never seen. But the 
great attraction was the plants and the flow- 
ers which everywhere appeared. On brack- 
ets, filling the window-seats, festooning the 
curtains, were ferns, vines and flowers. 

This is Miss Grantley,’’ said Anna, 
breaking into Helen’s unconscious survey 
of the apartment. 

Helen turned and saw lying on a low 
couch by the window a girl whom at first 
6 


82 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


glance she thought beautiful. Yet aside 
from an exquisite complexion and soft 
brown eyes Maria Wells could lay no 
claims to even prettiness. She did not have 
the invalid look Helen expected. Her 
cheeks were full, her face was cheerful. 

“Miss Grantley and I have been neigh- 
bors for some time, but I have never seen 
her before; I couldn’t be neighborly, and 
she hasn’t been so,” she added with a smile. 

“ Oh, Maria, where did you get these love- 
ly lilies-of-the- valley ? Ours have been gone 
this long time,” broke out Anna, taking up a 
vase of lilies which sat on a stand beside the 
couch. 

“ Mother has a bed on the north side of 
the house, where the snow lingers late into 
the spring. They are so backward that they 
do not blossom until June. So I have the 
dear white bells for over a month,” touchino* 
them caressingly with her delicate fingers. 

“ No, I can’t stay,” said Anna as Maria 
motioned her toward a seat ; “ I came to 
bring you that book Laura promised you.” 

“Oh, thank you.” Then a cloud came 
over the bright face : “ I don’t know whether 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


83 


I had better keep it or not, for mother^s eyes 
are so bad that she cannot read to me, and I 
could not think of reading it myself.” 

‘‘ Can you read at all?” asked Anna. 

Only in this fashion now-a-days,” replied 
Maria, taking up a large-print Testament 
which lay beside the lilies. She straighten- 
ed herself upon her back, rested her elbows 
upon the bed and held the book up above 
her eyes. 

‘‘ Of course I can read but a moment or 
two that way. All I do is to read a verse of 
the Bible ; then I repeat it over until I learn 
it. I have committed all the Gospel of John ; 
now I am learning Bomans, but I find it 
harder than John. It’s a great comfort to 
me to do this, but I couldn’t think of at- 
tempting a story. Once I could read with 
more ease.” 

“ Oh dear ! I wish I could read it to you, 
but the next two weeks I shall be so busy. 
We are preparing for the anniversary at 
school, and between getting ready for exam- 
ination and preparing the paper which I am 
to edit, I don’t have a moment’s leisure.” 

‘‘ If you are perfectly willing to leave the 


84 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


book for a longer time than usual, you may. 
Perhaps mother’s eyes will get better, or 
somebody may come to read to me. You 
know the old adage about the lame and the 
lazy. They are always provided for; and 
if the lame happen to be blind as well, the 
proverb may still hold good,” said Maria 
with a bright smile. 

‘‘ Why, it’s almost two o’clock !” exclaimed 
Anna, glancing at the clock on the bureau ; 

I shall lose my dinner.” 

Come and see me when you can ; I shall 
expect a large piece of your time during va- 
cation. — I hope. Miss Grantley, that you too 
will be neighborly, now you have taken the 
first step. You will have to come soon and 
return this call. That is the way my friends 
do. — Good-bye. I thank you both for coming 
to-day.” 

‘‘ So you go to school ?” said Helen as the 
two girls stood for a moment at the gate be- 
fore separating to take their different ways 
homeward. 

“Yes. You don’t?” 

“No; I wish I did.” 

“ Why don’t you ?” came to Anna’s lips. 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 85 

but she thought in time to change it into, 
“I suppose you study at home?” 

‘‘I don’t study at all.” 

“Don’t you have time?” 

“ ‘ Time ’ ? ” repeated Helen bitterly ; “ I 
have more time than I know what to do 
with.” 

“Then why didn’t you offer to read that 
book to Maria?” 

“ I never thought that I could,” replied 
Helen truthfully. 

“But you will, now that you think of it? 
Please do.” 

Helen hesitated. “Maybe I will,” she 
said at last. 

“ When mother says ‘ maybe,’ I know that 
I have gained my point ; I hope it is so with 
you. I am going to run back and tell Ma- 
ria that you will read the book to her. 
That will give her something pleasant to 
think of,” said Anna, opening the gate. 

“No, don’t,” cried Helen in dismay. 

“Why not?” 

“Maybe I cannot — shall not,” she an- 
swered. 

“Oh yes, you can and will. Please let 


86 


DR. GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


me tell Maria. I may, may I not?’^ per- 
sisted Anna, looking coaxingly into Helen’s 
face. 

It was a new and rather pleasant expe- 
rience for Helen to have any one coax her : 

Well, yes. I suppose I can do it.” 

Anna waited for no more, hut bounded up 
the walk. 

‘‘Maria is perfectly delighted,” she cried, 
coming back, her own face radiant. “ She 
says, if you will please, come to-morrow at 
four o’clock, if that time is perfectly conve- 
nient for you.” 

“ I can come one time as well as another,” 
replied Helen. 

“I am so glad that you came to church 
to-day when I had this book to bring to 
Maria ! It is what Deacon Hopkins would 
call providential. I am so happy to have 
found a friend for Maria — a friend, too, who 
has leisure to read to her ! I declare it will 
make me happy all the week.” 

“A friend”! Helen thought the word 
over as she walked homeward. She had 
often wished for a friend, but she had 
thought little about being one. Perhaps 


DR. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


87 


she could be a friend to Maria, and have 
Maria for her friend. Would she like to 
have it turn out so ? Helen was not quite 
certain. She was thinking it over when 
she reached the gate. 

Dr. Grantley sat smoking in the porch. ' 

“ Where have you been he asked stern- 
ly as Helen came up the walk. 

Dr. Grantley did not ask for information. 
He had extracted from Mrs. Tibbits, dur- 
ing dinner, a full account of the morning’s 
events, even to the sitting in the deacon’s 
pew and the remaining to Sunday-school. 
Mrs. Tibbits had fully intended to say noth- 
ing about the matter. She liked Helen bet- 
ter than she liked the doctor, and she knew, 
moreover, that on this occasion she herself 
would come in for a share of the blame. 
But, unfortunately for her intended secrecy, 
Mrs. Tibbits was on^ of those persons whom 
the consciousness of having anything to con- 
ceal makes unusually communicative, and 
Dr. Grantley was not a questioner easy to 
evade. 

‘‘To church,” replied Helen, coming up 
the steps. 


88 


DR. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


“What did you go there for?” 

‘‘For the same reason that other people 
do, I suppose.” 

“ That is a lie. Other people go from a 
sense of duty, to see their friends or to 
show their new clothes ; you have no sense 
of duty, no friends, no new clothes. Now 
look here, young lady,” he added, after wait- 
ing an instant for a reply from Helen : “ I 
don^t care anything about your going to 
church — you’ll get tired of it soon enough 
— but I am not going to have you sitting 
in the pew of that old hypocrite next door. 
What did you mean by sitting there to- 
day ?” 

“Not being accustomed to church-going,” 
said Helen coolly, “ I did not know that it 
was necessary to tell the sexton what seats 
you would not sit in.” 

“H’m!” muttered the doctor. “Well, 
you understand now. You are not to have 
anything to do or to say with that old hyp- 
ocrite or with any of his family.” 

Helen went into the house without an- 


swering. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


“He is truly learned that doeth the will of God and for- 
saketh his own will. He is truly great who hath great love.’^ 


RACIOUS me!’’ exclaimed Mrs. Tib- 



^ bits as Helen came into the kitchen 
after supper dressed to go out. “ Where 
are you going now ?” 

“To the meeting.” 

“To meeting? to-night? alone? You 
mustn’t think of it. The doctor was aw- 
fully vexed about your going this morning. 
You must not go to-night.” 

Helen composedly fastened her gloves. 

“ Please don’t go,” cried the widow, chang- 
ing her unaccustomed tone of command to 
one of entreaty. “ I shall not dare look at' 
the doctor if he comes home while you are 
gone. He’ll be sure to lay the blame on 
me. Don’t go, Helen, that’s a good girl,” 
pleaded Mrs. Tibbits, placing herself in the 
doorway. 


89 


90 


DR. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


Helen brushed her aside as if she had been 
a fly. 

‘‘ I am going to meeting, Mrs. Tibbits, and 
you had better stop making yourself ridicu- 
lous.’’ # 

‘‘ Oh dear ! what shall I do ?” moaned 
Mrs. Tibbits as Helen went slowly down the 
walk. I might go with her, but that would 
only make him more provoked ; he’d say I 
started it. It was only yesterday I heard him 
tell her not to be out after dark ; and Sunday 
night is the worst of all. What shall I do? 
There is Zebadiah Potter; I’ll just ask him 
to look after her. — Mr. Potter ! Mr. Potter !” 
she called. 

Mr. Potter stopped, and before Helen 
could protest she was put under his care. 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Tibbits, coming back to 
the house, ‘‘ I’ve done the best I could, but I 
suppose he will not think so.” 

Mrs. Tibbits was not disappointed in her 
expectation of a scolding. Dr. Grantley 
came in from a long ride very tired and 
crosser than usual. He found fault with the 
supper which Mrs. Tibbits had provided ; he 
asked if she had not made a mistake and put 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


91 


chips on the bread-plate and emptied her 
dish-water into the teapot. 

‘‘ There’s nothing fit to eat on this table ; 
make me some lemonade.” 

“ There are no lemons in the house.” 

“ No lemons in the house ! How many 
times have I got to say that I want lemons 
in the house every day during the summer? 
Well, I must have some : that’s all there is 
about that. Helen can go down to Jenkins’s 
and get some.” 

“ It’s Sunday ; the grocery will not be 
open.” 

“ Well, then, she can go to the house ; 
Jenkins will get some for her. Where is 
she?” 

She ain’t here.” 

“If she was here I shouldn’t be asking 
you about her. Go tell her to get ready.” 

“ She ain’t in the house.” 

“ I presume not; she never is when she is 
wanted. Where is she ?” 

“ Gone to meeting,” gasped the widow 
fiiintly. 

“ Meeting ?” 

“ Yes.” 


92 bb. gbantley^s neighbobs. 

The doctor swore loudly. He was often 
profane when he was angry, but Mrs. Tibbits 
was always terrified. 

The sight of her to-night crying behind 
her pocket handkerchief enraged the doctor 
more. 

‘‘ Fool !” he muttered, “ what did you let 
her go for? Didn’t you hear me tell her 
last night not to be out after dark?” 

‘‘ I couldn’t help it,” sobbed Mrs. Tibbits. 
“ I tried to reason with her ; then I stood in 
the door and told her not to think of going, 
but she pushed me out of her way and walk- 
ed off. I saw Zebadiah Potter going along, 
and I asked him to see to her. It was all I 
could do, and even that made her angry.” 

‘‘I don’t doubt, Mrs. Tibbits, that you put 
her up to going. When I hired you the 
principal recommendation you had was the 
absence of any pretence to piety. Now let 
me tell you : I am not going to have any 
sneaking hypocrites in my house. If you 
propose to try piety, you can pack your 
baggage and leave.” 

The widow began a tearful protest against 
the accusation of '‘piety,” but the doctor. 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


93 


without waiting to hear her, walked into 
the library, slamming the door behind him. 

Helen found Mr. Potter a very unobtrusive 
companion. He said little on the way to 
church, and on their return his only remark, 
aside from directions how to avoid stones and 
mud, was the abrupt question. 

Are you a Christian 

At first Helen said ‘‘ Yes,” then ‘‘ No,” 
then “ I don’t know ” — not because she was 
in any doubt as to her state, but because she 
did not know what a Christian was. Mr. 
Potter made no comment on Helen’s con- 
fused answer, and neither of them spoke 
again on the way home. 

Mr. Zebadiah Potter — or, as he was gener- 
ally called, Uncle Zeb — was a hard-working, 
plain-spoken farmer about seventy years old. 
Same one has said that to old men who are 
not lovely enough for the endearing title of 
“father ” that of “ uncle ” is given. In some 
such manner Uncle Zeb must have won his 
uncleship. To be honorable in his dealings 
was his religion; for anything beyond he 
seemed to have no desire. In every revival 
with which the Conesus Corners church was 


94 BR. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

blessed Uncle Zeb was the subject of many 
prayers and the object of some ill-judged ef- 
forts. So many such seasons had passed, how- 
ever, without any apparent change in Uncle 
Zeb’s position that even the most sanguine be- 
gan to lose hope ; but Mrs. Potter’s faith never 
faltered. Some time, it might be at the elev- 
enth hour, she believed Zebadiah would be 
converted. She had prayed for him for 
years, and “ praying breath was never spent 
in vain.” 

On this particular Sunday Mr. Potter 
came home at noon more quiet than usual. 

‘‘ If you don’t go to meeting for nothing 
but to find fault, you’d better stay at home,” 
was his only comment on his son James’s 
would-be smart dissection of the sermon. 

James was so astonished by this attack 
from his usual ally that he subsided into 
silence. 

After dinner Uncle Zeb went out to feed 
the cattle. He was gone so long that Mrs. 
Potter grew uneasy. Possibly she could 
not herself have told why she did not send 
James instead of going herself to look for 
him, nor why she opened the barn-door so 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 95 

softly. At first she could see no one, but 
at last she saw, high up on the haymow, 
close to the little cobwebbed window, her 
husband reading. Mrs. Potter's heart beat 
quickly. As noiselessly as she had entered 
she slipped out of the barn and hurried to 
the house. The family Bible was gone. 

The parlor bedroom was Mrs. Potter’s 

Peniel,” whither she retired and prayed 
for the work of God’s Spirit on her hus- 
band’s heart until her evening duties called 
her away. Even then, as she went about 
the house, her heart prayed on. 

James had another surprise that night 
when his father announced his intention 
of going to the evening meeting. 

‘‘ I declare !” he muttered as he watched 
his father’s form disappear in the direction 
of the Corners ; ‘‘ I believe father’s getting 
pious. Once a day generally does for him.” 

That evening, as Mrs. Potter was sitting 
alone, James having gone to see some of 
the farmers’ daughters of the neighborhood, 
she heard a quick step coming up the path 
from the gate. The door was thrown sud- 
denly open a id her husband entered. 


96 DR. GRARTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

‘^Mother, pray for me! pray quick!” he 
cried. 

Mrs. Potter needed no second invitation. 
She cried mightily unto the Lord, and pre- 
vailed. 

The next morning, as James started from 
the breakfast-table to go about his work, his 
father stopped him : 

“Wait a bit, James; I have something to 
say to you. I’ve always meant to be an 
honest man, but I hain’t been a religious 
one. Not that I hain’t thought, for I have ; 
but I might have thought and still gone 
down to my grave unprepared. Yesterday, 
when that minister was a-preaching, it came 
to me all of a sudden how I looked in the 
sight of God. I was dreadfully cut up. I 
haven’t no gift for talking; I can’t tell what 
I went through yesterday ; but I ain’t the 
man I was. God helping me, I’m going to 
live for him. I’ve been talking with moth- 
er, and she thinks, and so do I, that we ought 
to have family prayers. So, if you’ll set 
down a while, I’ll read a chapter and try 
to pray.” 

The astonished James seated himself while 


DR. ORANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 97 

his father read and offered a broken but 
earnest prayer. 

Justus Halsay’s prayer that he might 
help some soul was answered. 

When Helen reached home that same 
Sunday night Mrs. Tibbits tiptoed up to 
her room : 

Oh, Helen ! the doctor was dreadfully 
enraged about your going to meeting to- 
night. I didn’t mean to tell him where 
you were, but I had to do it. He wanted 
you to go to the Corners for some lemons.” 

‘‘ I shouldn’t have gone had I been here.” 

‘‘You would have had to go. He came 
in as cross as a bear. He scolded at every- 
thing there was on the table to eat — ” 

“ No unusual occurrence,” remarked Hel- 
en, putting away her bonnet. “ I don’t see 
that it’s worth while to take up my time 
telling me of it.” 

“He asked me three times where you 
were, and when I had to tell him he swore 
at me. It makes my hair stand straight up 
to hear him swear so. I couldn’t help cry- 
ing, and then he called me a fool.” 

“ In which he told the truth,” commented 

7 


98 


1)H. aHANTLhjy^S I^KWJJBOHS. 


Helen aotlo voce^ adding aloud, “ I don’t care 
a straw what he said. 1 am very tired, and 
I want to go to bed.” 

“ Well, T’rn afraid you’ll catch it to-mor- 
row.” 

‘‘I can stand it if 1 do,” said Helen, open- 
ing the door for Mrs. Tibhits’s departure. 

‘‘How did you like Uncle Zeb?” asked 
the irrepressible widow, pausing outside the 
door. 

“1 liked him; he knew enough to be 
still when no one wanted him to talk.” 

With which broad hint Helen closed the 
door, leaving Mrs. Tibbits to grope her way 
down stairs in the dark, meditating mean- 
while on the relative disagreeablcness of the 
two Grantleys. 

Notwithstanding her assurance to Mrs. 
Tibbits that she was sleepy, I [el on did not 
go to bed. Hhe blow out her candle and 
seated hers(;lf by the window. It had been 
such a strange day I She felt as if she were 
another Helen (jirantley from the one who 
had gone out of that room in the morning — 
not better nor worse, but dillerent. It was 
as if one who had lived all his lif(^ in a val- 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 99 

ley should climb a mountain and look out 
upon the world lying around him. Had 
she been asleep all her life before ? These 
people whom she had met to-day had lived 
near her all these years, yet she had neither 
known of nor cared for them. Would 
Anna Dunlap be the friend she wanted ? 
What would come of her readings to Ma- 
ria? Confused with these thoughts came 
the question Uncle Zeb had asked her. 
Which had been the right answer? All 
people who believed in Christ were Chris- 
tians. She believed in him — at least she 
supposed she did, although she had never 
thought much about the matter; but surely 
she was not a heathen. As she was about 
to climb into the high, old-fashioned bed- 
stead she was startled by the mental sug- 
gestion, “Why don’t you pray?” 

Pray ! why should she ? 

The answer came, “This has been a pleas- 
ant day for you ; can’t you thank God fur 
it?” 

Half ashamed, Helen knelt and said, 

“O God, I thank thee for this day.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


“Blessed indeed are those ears which listen not after the 
voice which is sounding without, but for the truth teaching 
within.” 

I T was the practice of the Conesus Corners 
church to hold a congregational meeting 
on the Monday following the Sunday on 
which any candidate had occupied the pul- 
pit. At these meetings the eligibility of the 
candidate to fill the office of pastor was free- 
ly discussed, and the sentiment of the church 
taken as a preliminary to the more formal 
meeting to decide to call or not to call a 
pastor. These meetings were always largely 
attended. Church-members who, on account 
of fatigue, overworked horses, the heat of 
summer or the cold of winter, could never 
be present at the weekly prayer-meeting, 
were more fortunate on the day of this meet- 
ing. To be sure, these meetings were always 
held in the daytime, making necessary the 
100 , 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 101 

leaving of business and the taking of horses 
from work, but for great objects small sacri- 
fices must be made. Two o’clock in the af- 
ternoon following the E,ev. Justus Halsay’s 
candidature found every man who could lay 
any claim to belonging to the congregation 
of the First Presbyterian Church of Conesus 
Corners gathered in the little meeting-house. 
That the women were not present argued no 
indifference on their part, but they were not 
given a voice in these business-meetings. 

On this occasion the meeting followed its 
usual order. Judge Balcom being in the 
chair to see that all was conducted according 
to parliamentary rules. Each candidate had 
satisfied a few admirers that he, and he only, 
was the pastor. whom the Conesus Corners 
church required, and the spokesman of each 
of these parties urged that his man be heard 
again. Others had new candidates to sug- 
gest. This latter proposition brought Deacon 
Hopkins to his feet : 

“ Don’t let’s have another one ! This 
church has not got the spirituality to stand 
it. We’ve had seven now, and every one 
makes matters worse. Says Sister Robinson 


102 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

to me yesterday, ‘ I’ve been a-praying" for a 
revival this winter, but if we don’t stop hav- 
ing candidates I’ll have to stop praying, for 
I hain’t got the faith. I’m afeerd the church 
is getting where the Lord can’t bless us.’ I 
tell you, brethren, when it has got so that 
one member of the church won’t speak to 
another because he has said something 
aginst his candidate, — I tell you we are in 
no condition for the Lord to bless us. This 
candidating is breaking the church up into 
little sets. Don’t let’s have another one. 
What’s the matter with Mr. Halsay? I 
move that we call him.” 

I move an informal ballot for all the can- 
didates,” called a party- man. 

After some discussion a ballot was taken, 
giving a large majority for Mr. Halsay. 

“ I move that we express our views — that 
a regular meeting be held and a call extend- 
ed to the Rev, Justus Halsay to become the 
pastor of this church.” 

“ I second the motion.” 

The judge called for ‘‘remarks,” which 
were growing animated, when Uncle Zeba- 
diah Potter arose : 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 103 

“ You all know I ain’t no hand to speech- 
ify. I always come to these meetings, but I 
never say nothing, because I never had nothing 
to say. To-day Fve got somethin’, but ’tain’t 
nowise certain I can say it. It seems to me 
I have an argument for Mr. Halsay to be 
called. I don’t know as I can git it out. 
I never had such a feller-feeling for dumb 
critters as I have this afternoon. You all 
know what I’ve been. I’ve meant to be an 
honorable man in my dealings, but I hain’t 
taken no stock in religion. I’ve been to 
meeting off and on for a good many years, 
but it never seemed Ao do me no good — least- 
wise, it never come to anything. I s’pose 
it’s been a kind o’ working in me. There’s 
my wife Mary ; if ever there was a saint on 
airth, it’s her. Many’s tlie time she’s talked 
and prayed with me. Well, I came up to 
meeting yesterday to hear the new preacher. 
I remember thinking he didn’t look nigh so 
smart as some of the others, and when he 
took his text, ‘ The eyes of the Lord are in 
every place, beholding the evil and the good,’ 
I began to reckon up how many sermons I 
had heerd on that ’ere text. But before he’d 


104 DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

got done it seemed to me as if I stood all 
alone and there wasn’t nothing nowhere but 
them ’ere eyes of God. It seemed to me I 
saw myself just as I looked in the sight of 
God. I couldn’t get away from it. 1 went 
home from meeting, and I took a Bible and 
I went out to the barn, and climbed up on 
the haymow to read. But the more I read 
the worse I felt. I tried to pray, but I 
couldn’t do it. I came to meeting in the 
evening, and he preached about the love of 
Christ. It seemed to me as if the Lord Je- 
sus stood right afore me. I saw the blood- 
drops which the thorns had made on his fore- 
head, and he held out his hands all pierced 
with the nails, and he said, ‘ I have suffered 
all this for you. Will you not love me?’ 
And I couldn’t love him ; my heart was like 
a millstone. It seemed to me I’d die before 
I got home. When I got to the gate I fairly 
run up to the house ; I opened the door, and 
mother sat there alone. Says I, ^Mother, 
pray for me — pray quich !’ I didn’t need to 
ask her more than once. Afore I could get 
the door shut she was on her knees ; and I 
tell you she prayed ! She got right hold of 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 105 

the Lord, and she never let go until it seem- 
ed as if this ’ere hard heart of mine was all 
melted down. I just cried out, ^ My Lord 
and my God!’” Here Uncle Zeb choked. 

Bless the Lord I” cried the deacon, “ bless 
the Lord I Let us give thanks to him for 
his great goodness. Amen.” 

“ While we rejoice,” began Judge Balcom 
so soon as the “Amen ” had fallen from the 
deacon’s lips, “to know that the Lord in his 
great mercy has awakened one of our fellow- 
citizens to a realizing sense of his lost con- 
dition, and taken his feet out of the miry 
clay, we must not forget that the purpose for 
which we are gathered together is not to hear 
religious experiences nor to give way to our 
emotions,” with a reproving glance at the 
offending deacon, “ but to decide whether we 
desire to extend a call to the Bev. Justus 
Halsay to become the pastor of this people.” 

“ ’Seems to me,” said the irrepressible dea- 
con, springing to his feet, “ that the Lord has 
settled that question for us. I hain’t been 
clear in my mind about this candidating. It 
never seemed the right thing. It’s mostly 
show-sermons that candidates preach — least- 


106 


DB. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


wise, sermons to the head more than to the 
lieart. I hain’t got nothing to say aginst the 
candidates we’ve had — some of them have 
fed me — but I haven’t heard of the Lord’s 
blessing those sermons to the conversion of 
souls. Here’s one brother for whom we have 
prayed, and with whom we have labored for 
years, and this man has come and brought 
the truth right home to him as we couldn’t. 
It seems to me just as if the Lord had set 
his seal on him, saying, ‘ This is the man 
I have chosen.’” 

Many of the members were in sympathy 
with Deacon Hopkins, and so, after some 
further discussion, it was decided to hold 
a meeting to call the Rev. Justus Halsay 
to the pastorate of the First Presbyterian 
Church at Conesus Corners. In due time 
the meeting was summoned, a neighboring 
pastor presiding, and a formal call was ex- 
tended to Mr. Halsay with scarce a dissent- 
ing vote. 

Uncle Zeb was not born into the king- 
dom dumb. Everywhere he went he told 
what a Saviour he had found. The conver- 
sion of a man so well known naturally made 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 107 

much impression in a quiet country village, 
so it happened that the numbers began to 
increase at the weekly prayer-meeting. Sis- 
ter Robinson redoubled her prayers ; Dea- 
con Hopkins wrote, with untold difficulty, a 
letter to Mr. Halsay urging him to come to 
the church immediately. The pastor-elect 
was no less anxious to enter upon his work 
than were his people to have him. There 
was no need of delay, so the third Sunday 
found him settled as pastor. 

The advent of a new minister, young and 
thoroughly in earnest, increased the interest, 
and Conesus Corners enjoyed the unusual 
experience of a revival in midsummer. 


CHAPTER X. 


“The time will come when the Master of masters shall 
appear, Christ the Lord of angels, to hear the lessons of all ; 
that is, to examine the consciences of every one.” 

O NE day, a few weeks after Mr. Halsay’s 
settlement at Conesus Corners, he wish- 
ed to consult with Deacon Hopkins in re- 
gard to some church matter, so he walked 
out to the farm-house. Mr. Halsay had 
fallen into the way of going to the deacon 
with all the vexatious questions which had 
arisen thus far in his pastoral life at the 
Corners. 

“ He^s down in the west wood-lot,’’ replied 
Eunice in answer to Mr. Halsay’s inquiry 
for her father. “Walk in, and I’ll blow 
the horn for him.” 

“Oh no; I’ll go right out where he is.” 
“ Well, you go down the lane until you 
come to the woods. You will hear the 
chopping; follow the sound, and you will 
have no trouble in finding him.” 

108 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 109 

‘‘Thank you, Miss Hopkins; I shall en- 
joy the walk through the woods,” said Mr. 
Halsay, starting down the grassy lane. 

When he reached the woods he could 
hear no sound save the “ noisy silence ” of 
Nature. 

“ I will go into the woods,’' he said to 
himself, “and enjoy their beauty until the 
chopping begins again.” 

He wandered under the trees, gathering 
now and then a flower and watching the 
ceaseless play of light and shade over the 
little path along which he was walking. 
At length he heard the sound of running 
water. 

“There is a brook somewhere here,” he 
exclaimed ; “ I must find it.” 

As he walked the ripple of the water 
became clearer and clearer. Then, mingled 
with its music, he heard a voice. He stop- 
ped to listen. 

“‘And he gathers the prayers as he stands, 

And they change into flowers in his hands. 

Into garlands of purple and red; 

And beneath the great arch of the portal, 

Through the gates of the city iraraortal, 

Is wafted the fragrance they shed.’ ” 


no UR. ORANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

The voice seemed half familiar, but who 
could be reading Longfellow in Deacon 
Hopkins’s woods? Rapidly approaching, 
he saw sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree 
which overhung the water a young girl with 
a book in her hand. The face was bent so 
low that at first he did not recognize her, 
but the rustling he made in the dead leaves 
aroused her, and she turned her face full 
upon him. Helen had of late been a reg- 
ular attendant at the Sabbath -school, where 
her thoughtful ignorance had attracted his 
attention. 

‘‘ Good-afternoon, Miss Helen ; you have 
a lovely place in which to read*” 

“ I like it,” replied Helen, as composedly 
as though meeting the minister in the woods 
were an every-day occurrence. ‘‘ These are 
Deacon Hopkins’s woods, but the brook don’t 
run through Dr. Grantley’s, so I come here. 
I like to hear the sound of the water.” 

“ This reminds me,” said Mr. Halsay, 
throwing himself down upon the leaf-cov- 
ered ground, ‘‘of a place in my uncle’s 
woods; I used to spend my vacations with 
him. There was just such a fallen tree as 


DR. ORANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. Ill 

the one you are sitting on. I used to take 
my books and go there to read. Do you 
like poetry?’’ 

‘‘I like Longfellow.” 

“ Your answer is wiser than my question,” 
said Mr. Halsay, smiling. “ ‘ Do you like 
poetry?’ is rather indefinite. Do you re- 
member Longfellow’s ‘Arsenal at Spring- 
field’?” 

“ I never read it.” 

“ If you will give me the book I will 
read it to you.” 

Helen handed him the book. Mr. Hal- 
say was a fine reader. Helen, with a nat- 
ural though uncultivated love for poetry, 
was delighted. 

“ Oh, how beautiful !” she cried, while her 
eager face, her clasped hands, gave an un- 
conscious tribute more flattering to the read- 
er than any spoken words. “ Won’t you 
please read some more?” 

Mr. Halsay read several poems; then, as 
the pages of the book opened to “Sandal- 
phon,” he read that. 

“ Do you give any flowers of prayer to 
Sandalphon, Miss Helen ?” 


112 


DB. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


Helen shook her head. 

“Why not?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Have you nothing to thank God for — 
nothing to ask of him ?” 

“ No, sir — at least not often. I did thank 
him a few weeks ago.” 

“ May I ask what you thanked him for 
then ?” 

“ Yes, sir. It was the first Sunday I went 
to church. I saw so many people — I can’t 
tell exactly what I mean, but everything 
seemed different when I came home.” 

“Was that the first Sunday I preached 
here?” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Had you never been to church before ?” 

“ Never since I came here. When I was 
at the asylum I always went, but I don’t 
remember much about it, except that I was 
always sleepy.” 

“ I hope I do not have that effect upon 
you?” laughed Mr. Halsay. 

“ No,” said Helen gravely, “ I don’t feel 
sleepy. I hear all you say, but I don’t un- 
derstand you.” 


DR, QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 113 

“ Is that my fault or yours T’ 

I don’t know ; I don’t understand any- 
thing lately. I don’t know anything, and 
I never shall. I wish I were dead!” 

Mr. Halsay was astounded by this out- 
burst, but he was wise enough not to say so. 
He only asked quietly, 

‘‘ Do you think dying would help mat- 
ters ?” 

‘‘No,” replied Helen, doggedly, “I sup- 
pose not, if that sermon you preached last 
Sunday, on ‘after death the judgment,’ is 
true. I don’t want to live, I don’t want 
to die.” 

Helen had come out into the woods that 
morning in the vain hope of escaping the 
thoughts which troubled her. Her dissat- 
isfaction had reached a point where it must 
find expression. A vague hope that Mr. 
Halsay could help her had betrayed her 
into a confidence at which she afterward 
wondered. 

She could not have been more fortunate 
in her listener. Mr. Halsay had a rare gift 
of sympathy. All who came to him with 
trouble went away feeling that the trouble 


114 UR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

was his as well as theirs. For the time being 
he went out of himself into their experience. 

My poor child !’’ he said when a few 
skillful questions had revealed to him the 
cause of Helen’s unhappiness. Don’t you 
know what you need ?” 

‘‘ Everything.” 

‘‘No — one thing.” 

“ What is it ?” 

“The love of Christ in your heart. I 
have all you say that you want — education, 
the opportunity for doing something in the 
world — yet were I to wake up to-morrow 
morning with Christ gone out of my life 
I should feel as you feel to-day: I should 
fear both death and life. With Christ I 
fear nothing; life is a continual pleasure. 
I wake up in the morning with the thought, 
‘Another day in which I can work for the 
Saviour who has done so much for me.’ I 
lie down at night in the consciousness of his 
love. Don’t you want this same Christ to 
come into your heart and say to all its un- 
rest, as he said to the raging waves of the 
sea, ‘ Peace, be still ’ ?” 

“ He will not come.” 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 115 

‘‘ Have you ever asked him 

‘‘ No, sir/’ 

‘‘Will you?” 

‘‘ I don’t know how.” . 

‘‘Are you willing to promise me that you 
will kneel down every night and morning 
and ask the Lord Jesus to come into your 
heart and to dwell there?” 

“ I do not believe that Christ could make 
my life pleasant.” 

“ Perhaps not as it is, but if your heart 
were filled with his love you would find that 
some of your troubles could be removed and 
others made endurable. You can never un- 
derstand until you know it by experience 
how much lighter a trouble becomes when 
we carry it to our Father in prayer. Here 
is this matter of school. Take it to God ; 
ask him to influence Hr. Grantley to let 
you go.” 

“ God influence Hr. Grantley ! He 
couldn’t; Hr. Grantley has nothing to do 
with God.” 

“ It is possible that God may have more 
to do with him than he with God. Pray 
and wait. Ask your heavenly Father every 


116 


DB. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


day that if it be his will you may go to 
school ; then try to believe that if it is best 
God will so arrange matters that you can 
go.” 

“ I am almost discouraged about going to 
school,” said Helen wearily, “since I talked 
with Anna Dunlap, she knows so much more 
than I do. I shall be put clear down with 
the little children. I don’t know anything 
about school-books.” 

“ While we are waiting for the answer 
which we trust God will send, you must be 
getting ready ; you must study by your- 
self.” 

“ I don’t know how ; I tried last winter, 
but I kept coming to things I didn’t under- 
stand, so I became discouraged.” 

“ It may be that I can help you over some 
of the hard places.” 

Helen’s eyes sparkled with delight, but 
she did not speak. 

“ I could not give much time to you, but 
perhaps two hours a week would give you all 
the assistance needed. I will call at your 
house and see what books you have.” 

Helen’s face fell. • 


DR. GBANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 117 

‘‘ It will never do/’ she said hesitatingly, 
for you to come there. Dr. Grantley hates 
ministers. Mr. Robertson called once. Dr. 
Grantley was away, but he told Mrs. Tibbits 
that if he had been at home he would have 
turned him out of the house.” 

“ Then he would be unwilling to have me 
direct your studies ?” 

‘‘ He would be unwilling to have anybody 
do anything to help me,” replied Helen bit- 
terly. 

‘‘ I don’t know how we can manage about 
the lessons under these circumstances,” said 
Mr. Halsay, musing. 

Couldn’t I bring my books here to the 
woods or somewhere where you could come ?” 
asked Helen eagerly. 

Mr. Halsay looked into the face turned so 
anxiously toward his, and left unuttered the 
indignant refusal that trembled on his lips. 
He only said, 

“That would be quite impossible. Miss 
Helen. I can do nothing underhanded;” 
adding, as he saw a look of disappointment 
stealing into Helen’s face, “Do not be dis- 
couraged ; I will try 4:o arrange matters.” 


118 DB. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

‘‘But I am forgetting the object of my 
walk/’ said Mr. Halsay, rising. “ Can you 
tell me where Deacon Hopkins’s west wood- 
lot is ? I called at the house, and Miss Eu- 
nice said that her father was chopping in the 
west wood-lot. I was looking for him when 
I discovered you.” 

“ I can show you where he is,” said Helen. 

They walked along in silence. 

“ There,” said Helen, pointing to a little 
opening through which the figures of the 
men could be seen. 

“ Well, Miss Helen, are you going to give 
me the promise I asked of you a few mo- 
ments ago?” 

Helen hesitated. 

“Yes,” she said at length; “I promise to 
ask.” 

“ Every night and every morning ?” 

“ Every night and every morning.” 

“Thank you. I will not forget the les- 
sons. You may be sure that I will try to 
find some way to help you.” 


CHAPTEE XI. 


“A peaceable man doth more good than he that is well 
learned. A passionate man draweth even good into evil, and 
easily believeth the worst.” 

“ T WISH that girl would come to our 

J- evening meetings,” said Deacon Hop- 
kins as Mr. Potter and he were walking to- 
gether to church and saw Helen sitting on 
the porch. “ Mr. Halsay thinks she has 
considerable feeling. If she could come to 
meeting, maybe she’d find the light.” 

“Why don’t she come?” 

“ The doctor won’t let her be out evenings 
alone, and there ain’t any one to come with 
her. Eunice and I would be very glad to 
take her with us, but there ain’t no use to 
think of that, so long as the doctor feels as 
he does. He has forbidden her to speak to 
us.” 

“I wonder I haven’t thought of that girl. 
She went down to meeting with me the night 
I was converted. I remember I asked her 


119 


120 DR. GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

if she was a Christian, kind o’ hoping that 
she could help me. First she said ‘ Yes,’ 
then ‘ No,’ then she ‘ didn’t know.’ I con- 
cluded that she didn’t know nothing about 
it, so I didn’t say no more to her. I haven’t 
thought of her since.” 

“ Maybe if you were to ask the doctor he’d 
let her go with you again.” 

‘‘ Maybe. Can’t do any harm to try.” 

Have you ever talked to Dr. Grantley 
since you’ve found the Lord ?” 

“ No, I haven’t. I’ve thought about it 
a good deal, but I haven’t done it.” 

“ I wish you would. I don’t suppose he 
ever has anything said to him ; folks are 
almost all afraid of him.” 

‘‘ I’m not afeerd of him, but I’ll tell you 
just what I am afeerd of. The doctor is one 
of your lamed men, and I hain’t had no ed- 
ication at all ; it is as much as I can do to 
read my Bible. Every time I think about 
saying anything to the doctor, something 
says, ‘ You don’t know nothing. If you go 
you’ll only disgrace your Master and make 
everything worse than it is now, so you’d 
better keep still.’ ” 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 121 

“That’s the devil,” commented Deacon 
Hopkins briefly. 

“ Maybe, maybe. I’d just as soon go if I 
thought it would be best. I do wish I had a 
leetle more edication.” 

“ Perhaps that isn’t what’s needed. I was 
talking to Mr. Halsay last night about speak- 
ing in meeting. Judge Balcom said some- 
thing about speaking to ediflcation and bring- 
ing ‘ beaten oil into the sanctuary.’ I knew 
he meant me, from the way he said it ; so I 
spoke to him about it. He said I didn’t use 
good grammar, and he tried to tell me what 
I ought to say. Law me ! I couldn’t re- 
member what he told me ten minutes. It 
kind o’ troubled me, so I didn’t say nothing 
in meeting last night. Mr. Halsay asked 
why, so I told him all about it. He said 
it wasn’t grammar we wanted ; grammar 
wouldn’t convert a man. It was the love 
of Christ in the heart that we needed, and 
you’ve got that. Brother Potter.” 

“ I orter have. If there’s a man in this 
univarse that orter love the Lord Jesus 
Christ, that man’s me. Maybe I could say 
a word to the doctor. I guess he kind o’ 


122 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

likes me; he always treats me civil-like. 
I’ll think of it.” 

The next afternoon Uncle Zeb, having 
thought and prayed over the matter, walked 
into Dr. Grantley’s office. Dr. Grantley, 
who promised himself some amusement from 
Uncle Zeb’s conversation, received him cor- 
dially : 

Take a seat, Uncle Zebadiah. This is a 
warm day.” 

‘‘ A regular scorcher,” replied Uncle Zeb, 
wiping his face with his red bandanna. 

After the weather had been fully discuss- 
ed, Mr. Potter, who had determined to be 
“ wise as a serpent,” tried to give the conver- 
sation a religious turn. Strategy was not in 
Uncle Zeb’s line ; this he soon discovered, 
and, abandoning it, he went straight to the 
point : 

‘‘ I’ve been a- thinking about Miss Helen 
that lives at your house. She went to meet- 
ing with me one night. I ain’t seen her out 
since.” 

“I told her she could not go; I am not 
going to have her running about at night.” 

‘‘ Wa’ll, I suppose you are right there ; 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


123 


gals ain’t what they used to be. When I 
was young and folks had a boy, all the old 
women in the village began to croak that 
boys was a great responsibility ; hut when 
it was a gal everybody took it for granted 
that it would come out all right. Now-a- 
days gals air about as risky as boys. Any 
objections to her going with me if I’ll see 
her home?” 

I see no use in her going. I don’t want 
any pious sneaks about my house.” 

‘‘ But you hain’t got no objection to her 
becoming a good Christian?” 

“ Nonsense ! These Christians are all 
alike ; they are either fools or hypocrites, 
or both.” 

‘‘In which class do you put me?” 

“ Beg your pardon, Mr. Potter ; I have 
not been accustomed to think of you as 
belonging to that set.” 

“ But I do belong there now, so what air 
you going to do with me?” 

“ You are excited now ; you will get over 
it.” 

“Excited? He-haw! he-haw!” laughed 
Uncle Zeb. “I look like it, don’t I? Pm 


124 DB. OBANTLEY^S NEIGHBOBS. 

one of your narvous, excitable critters ! 
Now, Dr. Grantley, I didn’t think that 
of you.” 

‘‘ Well,” laughed the doctor, who in the 
past had had some signal proofs of Uncle 
Zeb’s steady nerves, I must account for 
you on some other hypothesis.” 

‘‘And when your ’pothesis don’t meet the 
facts, you twist the facts to meet the ’pothe- 
sis. Call that fair, doctor?” 

“Well, you’ll get over it. Uncle Zeb. 
You have too much sense to be fooled long. 
I only wonder that they ever caught you.” 

“ No, sir ; I ain’t going to get over it ; I 
ain’t going to have none of your chicken- 
pox religion, all over in a few weeks. I am 
going to have the real old-fashioned con- 
sumption kind, that sticks to a body till 
they die.” 

“You are sound in considering it a dis- 
ease; I could make its diagnosis. It is a 
contagious disease too. The fact of the mat- 
ter is, Uncle Zeb, it’s all excitement.” 

“ Excitement is a good thing sometimes.” 

“ I am not so sure about that.” 

“Ain’t you? I was quoting your own 


DR. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 125 

words. When they got the smallpox at 
Warrenton last year, and some of the folks 
were a-scolding about the excitement at the 
Corners, you said at a public meeting that 
excitement was a good thing sometimes; 
you didn’t care how excited folks got if it 
led them to take precautionary measures. 
That’s all the excitement we Christians 
want. Any objections to my asking you 
a few questions about what you believe?” 

“ None at all,” replied the doctor, light- 
ing another cigar. 

“ Wa’ll, when we die what becomes of us ?” 

‘‘ There is no ‘ become.’ When we die, 
that is the end.” 

‘‘Just like a brute beast?” 

“ Exactly.” 

“Ain’t got no souls?” 

“ The soul is the life ; when the life goes, 
that is the end.” 

“ There ain’t nothing very comforting in 
that. ’Twouldn’t be much of a support in 
trouble.” 

“ I think it would. When life becomes to 
be more dreaded than death, a snap of the 
pistol, a dose of laudanum, and all is over.” 


126 DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

Be you sartin about it^s being all over?” 

‘‘No one can be certain about that con- 
cerning which he has neither his own expe- 
rience nor the testimony of others. The 
thing commends itself to my reason ; that 
is the most that I can say for it.” 

“That’s your belief; now for mine. I 
am a good sight sartiner about mine than 
you are about yours, because I think I’ve 
got the mind of the Lord for it. You be- 
lieve in the Lord?” 

“ I believe in a God.” 

■ “ Wa’ll, I believe that in every human 
body there is a soul that can’t die, and that 
for every soul that loves the Lord Jesus 
Christ there’s an eternity of joy that ain’t 
in the power of my tongue to describe, and 
for every soul that rejects him there’s a 
hell whose torments are just as much be- 
yond my power to describe. Now, suppose 
that you are right and I wrong, I am just 
as well off as you, because death is the end 
of both of us. Now, suppose I am right-^ 
you haven’t no objection, just for argument’s 
sake ?” 

“None at all.” 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 127 

“ Wa’ll, how is it with us then ? I, if I 
am faithful to the end, shall have before me 
an eternity of happiness, and you — ” 

Will be burning in that hell with which 
your preachers are so fond of threatening 
people,’’ interrupted Dr. Grantley, with an 
angry flash in his eye. 

I ain’t going to press the matter, be- 
cause you won't stand it, doctor, but I jest 
want to return you a bit of your own ad- 
vice. When James wanted to go over to 
Warren ton before he’d been vaccinated, you 
said it wasn’t worth while to run any risk 
in matters of importance. Dr. Grantley, 
ain’t you running an awful risk in this 
matter of religion ?” 

Dr. Grantley kicked the spittoon around 
to the other side of his chair, but made no 
reply. 

“ There’s one of your converts going by,” 
he said at length, breaking a silence that was 
becoming unpleasant. ‘‘Last night he lay 
dead drunk in front of Pilus’s saloon.” 

“ Let me see,” said Uncle Zeb, reflecting. 
“ Yes, that is the thirteenth time I’ve been 
told of that since I came to the Corners this 


128 


DR. QEANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


afternoon. There was Bill Slater, a regular 
old soaker, converted at the Baptist church 
tTvo years ago. He hasn’t drank a drop 
since, but I never hear none of you say 
anything about him^ 

When people set up for saints, it is not 
their good but their bad behavior which at- 
tracts attention.” 

“There is where you ain’t fair, doctor. 
Who sets up to be saints?” 

“ Why, all Christians, I suppose.” 

“ I can’t speak for the rest, but — 

Note. — This marks the last sentence of the nar- 
rative as left by the writer. The hand that had but 
just written those words, “I believe that in every 
human body there is a soul that cannot die, and that 
for every soul that loves the Lord Jesus Christ there 
is an eternity of joy,” — that hand laid down the pen 
for ever, and the writer ere long entered on that eter- 
nity of joy. 


CHAPTEE XII. 


“Thou art the true peace of the heart: thou art its only 
rest; out of thee all things are full of trouble and unrest.” 

H elen GEANTLEY kept the promise 
given to Anna Dunlap, and in the days 
that followed her first introduction to Maria 
Wells she went on several occasions to read 
to her; but they did not get acquainted with 
one another readily. This was entirely Hel- 
en’s fault : she was utterly uncommunicative 
with regard to her own thoughts and expe- 
riences, and she embarrassed the invalid by 
studying her with an earnest, searching scru- 
tiny, as if she were in some way an unintel- 
ligible problem that must be solved, a little 
at a time. The book they were reading to- 
gether happened to be one that Helen had 
seen before and thought very uninteresting, 
but Maria found it so suggestive that she 
often interrupted Helen to make some re- 
mark. At such times Helen would stop and 

9 129 


130 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

muse in silence, then go on without comment. 
But one day, not long after her interview 
with the new minister, she deliberately laid 
down her book, and, looking curiously at 
Maria, exclaimed, 

‘‘ How came you to know so much when — 
when you have had so few opportunities? 
Had you learned a great deal before your 
illness?’’ 

‘‘ I am not at all learned, I assure you,” 
laughed Maria in a soft little tone, ‘‘but I 
am older by ten years than you are, so I 
have experienced, felt and suffered more ; 
yes, and of course enjoyed more. We learn 
much by just living, you know.” 

“I have not gained much in that way,” 
returned Helen moodily. “Tell me what 
you mean ; tell me, if you will, more in 
detail about yourself. You are not like 
other invalids; they talk of themselves all 
the time ; at least, all I have ever seen did 
that.” 

“ If I tell you about myself you must do 
the same in regard to your own self. But 
where shall I begin, and how go on?” 

“ Tell me,” said Helen, with an eagerness 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 131 

that was not mere curiosity, how and why 
it is that you have grown bright, intelligent 
and happy, instead of becoming discontent- 
ed, stupid and ugly. If I were shut up for 
ten years I should die, go crazy, or grow so 
disagreeable as to be unendurable for a com- 
panion.” 

Maria hesitated, not knowing where to 
begin. 

“Describe yourself at fifteen,” suggested 
Helen. 

“ Well, at fifteen I was a very merry, ac- 
tive girl, not so thoughtful or so mature as 
you are. I was not fond of study or of 
reading, and had not been to school at all 
regularly. All I know I have learned since 
that time. One day — it was in June, the 
very last day, such a perfect day ! — I wanted 
to reach a beautiful rose that was at the top 
of a lattice. This last was very tall, and, as 
it proved, very insecure. I climbed, the frail 
thing tottered ; I fell and was injured for life. 
The first year is like a nightmare in my 
memory. I suffered and fretted ; I learned 
nothing. The next year I said to myself, 
‘ This is folly. I must live ; I will get what 


132 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


I can out of my life.’ My eyes were strong- 
er, and I could use them more than I can now. 
I resolved to read nothing merely for amuse- 
ment, and when I could get an interesting 
and at tlie same time an instructive book, I 
made it yield to me a great deal more than 
it gave to a careless reader. After reading 
a few good books in this way I had found 
out how to learn. In that bookcase are 
sixty- two books: I could stand a pretty close 
examination on their contents and meaning. 
All of them are good, some of them are 
classics. Meanwhile I studied — very slowly, 
to be sure, but I never had any vacation in 
my school, and no leave of absence ; there 
was perfect harmony between teacher and 
scholar, so I succeeded in mastering several 
text-books.” 

‘‘ I am fifteen, and I have studied little — 
have read a great number of all sorts of 
books, but I do not yet know how to study. 
I do not want to be taught just as you have 
been — that is, shut up to it steadily,” said 
Helen ; adding in a moment, But did 
study make you contented and happy ?” 

A faint, beautiful pink came out in the 


DR. ORANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


133 


older girl’s cheeks and a soft light kindled 
in her eyes. 

“ No,” she answered earnestly. Study 
made me ambitious, fired me with a zeal to 
do something grand, to ‘ be some one ’ in the 
world — made me ‘ intolerably angry with 
Fate,’ as I told dear old Deacon Hopkins 
one day. All he said to me was, ‘ Poor 
child ! cast your burden on the Lord, and 
he will sustain you, for he has promised 
that none shall seek in vain.’ Such a griev- 
ous mistake as I made then, Helen ! I un- 
derstood the deacon to mean that if I cast 
my burden on the Lord (and my burden 
was my bodily helplessness), he would take 
it away, whereas the promise is that I should 
be sustained under my burden. I convinced 
myself that I needed to be a Christian, so that 
I might pray in faith for perfect health ; 
then with health I could do great things. 
I searched my Bible for arguments ; I made 
my plans and prayed without ceasing; I 
asked for no wisdom outside of myself. I 
besieged high Heaven as a hostile foe at- 
tacks a fort, with the fury of desperation, 
and after a dreadful six months’ agony of 


134 DR, GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

begging and pleading I was worn out, soul 
and body.’’ 

“ What then ?” asked Helen, bending 
closer, a strange new animation in her usu- 
ally passionless face — ‘‘ what then ? Do not 
religious people say that is the kind of 
prayer that always prevails?” 

‘‘ Then,” continued Maria, I stopped all 
prayer. A distinguished doctor came to the 
Corners to consult with Dr. Grantley over 
some peculiar case, and mother asked him 
to call and see me. He told me I could 
never stand on my feet, never sit in a chair 
even. Then came a blackness of despair. 
I believed nothing; I said, ‘The world is 
full of wickedness, is full of misery, and 
there is no mercy, no justice. If I believe 
there is a God, he seems to me cruelty 
itself. A God of power who is not a God 
of pity must be a monster. My prayers 
are wasted efforts for body and mind.’ I 
remember how I used to lie with shut eyes 
listening to the patter of little children’s 
feet as they ran by my window — how, hear- 
ing it, I used to think, ‘ Poor little feet ! 
what heavy hearts you will carry if you 


DE. ORANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 135 

go on a little longer !’’ and, only that I pitied 
the mothers left desolate, I thought, ‘How 
good it is when children’s feet are stilled in 
death !’ I sto]3ped planning — stopped striv- 
ing to be or to do anything.” 

“ But what then ?” urged Helen slowly, 
half fearful of indelicate persistency, yet 
impelled to learn all. 

“ One midnight I was awake and won- 
dering how many years I might have to 
exist, for it seemed to me I was not living 
in any sense, of the word. I was not think- 
ing of religious things at all, when there 
came into my mind these words: ‘The 
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom 
the world is crucified unto me and I unto 
the world and then it was as if the words 
were — how can I explain it ? — made visible 
to my mind's eye. There, in the darkness 
of the midnight, I could not escape, did not 
wish to lose for the brief season it lasted, a 
mental picture of my Saviour. I forgot all 
doubts, all unrest, and, strangely quieted, 
waited, not realizing until the sunrise bright- 
ened all my room that I was in a new way 
ready for a neio day.” 


136 DR. OBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

‘‘ Do you mean you were converted 
asked Helen in a constrained tone, but with 
a determination to know all in its order. 

‘‘ I mean that all my prayers were an- 
swered that night ; only God gave me health 
and strength for my soul instead of giving 
it for my body. I never try to reason why 
all was as it was, but it seems to me that 
when I was worn out enough to be still and 
to give up my folly, heavenly help came. 
I might no doubt have had it sooner had I 
been less headstrong.” 

“Well, then,” exclaimed Helen with 
strange, sudden bitterness, “ I must wait 
for a vision perhaps.” 

“ If you misunderstand me, Helen,” cried 
Maria in a pained tone, “ I shall be very 
sorry I told you all this. I do not think 
one is always wise in telling of personal ex- 
periences. I had no vision in any gross or 
literal sense. But let my experience go now, 
and tell me, my child, what Christ is doing 
for you.” 

“ Nothing.” 

“ He will do everything — yes, everything 
worth calling goodP 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 137 

‘‘When? I have prayed, am praying. 
I get ill-tempered — nothing better in any 
way. I understand all you have said up to 
the time of your despair : soon I may know 
what that is.” 

“ You need never know it, you — ” 

In a tremulous voice Maria was about to 
give help to the young girl whose tone be- 
trayed the effort she was making at self-con- 
trol, when Helen, rising suddenly, dropped 
the neglected book and hurried out of the 
room without another word. 

The invalid shut her eyes, very weary 
with the hour’s talk, but her lips moved 
in silent prayer for the troubled soul. She 
had no fear for the final result. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


“ And hence it cometh to pass that all doth little profit thee 
until thou well consider that I am He that doth rescue them 
that trust in him, and tliat out of me there is neither powerful 
help nor profitable counsel nor lasting remedy.” 

H elen ghantley had kept the 

promise made to Mr. Halsay : she had 
prayed night and morning — at first using 
his own phrase, which was to her merely a 
phrase quoted from memory ; but soon she 
prayed with no set words, at no set time 
— prayed that what she needed might be 
hers. She heard of the religious meetings 
at the Corners, but felt little desire to at- 
tend them until Mrs. Tibhits began to be- 
tray great anxiety lest she should go not- 
withstanding Dr. Grantley’s wishes. 

What is he afraid that the result would 
be if you or I went to any of these meet- 
ings?” asked Helen one evening, aroused 
out of her usual indifference to Mrs. Tib- 
bits’s remarks. 


138 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


139 


“Oh, he is dreadfully turned against any- 
thing religious, so that he hates the thought 
of a body’s caring anything about a soul — 
a body’s own soul or another person’s. The 
house couldn’t hold one of us if either hap- 
pened to be converted.” 

“ Do such things happen, Mrs. Tibbits ? 
Do you think anything about your soul?” 
asked Helen, half sarcastically. 

“ Yes, I do. I ain’t a perfect heathen, if 
he does try to make me one. I think it 
would be a consolation to enjoy some church 
privileges, like going to a sewing society 
once in a while or getting up a donation- 
party. I ain’t a disbeliever.” 

“In what?” sneered Helen. 

“ In anything,” replied Mrs. Tibbits con- 
fusedly. 

Helen, in her intolerant, unhappy state, 
had no charity for the weak woman, who 
should, in her opinion, have had more force, 
more character — to be, in short, very much 
better or very much worse than she was. 

“Very well,” she returned. “I think I 
shall go to church to night ; will you go and 
enjoy that privilege with me, Mrs. Tibbits?” 


140 DB. GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBOBS. 

The housekeeper went about her work 
hurriedly in a scared way, pretending not 
to hear what she thought was a speech 
meant only to annoy her. What was her 
surprise a little later to see Helen come 
down from her chamber and go directly 
out on the piazza, where the doctor was 
resting after a long ride ! 

‘‘ You had better let him alone ; he — ” 
began Mrs. Tibbits, when she heard the 
words, 

‘‘ I should like to go over to the church ; 
have you any objections?’’ 

Dr. Grantley stared at her a while before 
he asked, 

“What are you going for?” 

“ Because I have nothing to do.” 

“ I should not forbid your going to a cir- 
cus (I hear one is coming), but I should for- 
bid your coming home to practice walking a 
tight-rope on my premises. Do you know 
what I mean?” 

“No, sir.” 

“ Go along. Hear all the psalm-singing 
and all the sermonizing, all the cant, hy- 
pocrisy and nonsense, you choose to listen to 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 141 

among these pious folk ; but lisp a syllable 
of it in my house afterward if you dare ! I 
don’t care what you think, believe or pray 
about, so that you hold your tongue in re- 
gard to it. But if you get to confessing or 
professing yourself a Christian, just remem- 
ber that ‘ birds of a feather flock together 
I’ll have no more of you. The Hopkinses 
or Judge Balcom or Uncle Zeb will no doubt 
adopt you then, and you will be a regular 
martyr, one who is persecuted for righteous- 
ness’ sake.” - 

Helen, as she listened, had tied her bon- 
net-strings under her chin, and then, to Mrs. 
Tibbits’s horror, walked away toward the 
church. 

‘‘ What a man ! he is as cruel as the — the 
— well, I don’t know what,” whispered the 
housekeeper to herself, retreating out of 
sight. 

The doctor, smoking there in the twilight, 
was secretly glad that Helen had gone. He 
did not think that she was likely to get ‘‘ ex- 
cited,” and he did not object to letting the 
Conesus Corners people see that a girl 
“brought up” by him could be preached 


142 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


at and remained unmoved. If he had 
forced her to stay at home, they would have 
said he was “ afraid of the power of the gos- 
pel.” Oh, he knew how they talked him 
over. It flattered his vanity that they con- 
sidered him an ‘‘ interesting case,” a man to 
be angled for and prayed for in times like 
these. Had he any idea that he should 
turn Helen out of doors if she avowed her- 
self a Christian? No, certainly not, but it 
was well to let her know that she must 
never bother him with any ‘‘gushing pios- 
ity,” as he expressed it to himself. He was, 
beneath all his surliness, a man, yet the 
young girl who walked quietly along the 
dusty path to the church was thinking, “ I 
never expect to be a Christian. I cannot 
understand it. I do not want to be one if 
I must suffer for it as Maria Wells suffers. 
If I were to become one, however, I would 
not be forbidden to speak, to breathe, to tell 
what I believed, by Dr. Grantley; and if 
I disobeyed him he would not let me live 
there any longer. I don’t care; I wish I 
were dead.” 

The lecture-room of the church was filled 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 143 

wheu Helen entered the door, and the con- 
gregation was singing a hymn. She slipped 
into a seat near by, and became a quiet lis- 
tener to the simple, heartfelt exercises of 
the evening. Mr. Halsay^s address was 
direct, earnest and suited to the time and 
place. Deacon Hopkinses prayer was a 
mystery to her. It would have amazed the 
uneducated old man to know that it seemed 
to her like a wonderful strain of unearthly 
music, suggesting thoughts she could not 
follow, yet such as filled her eyes with tears. 

Toward the last of the service Uncle Zeb- 
adiah Potter arose, saying, 

“ I thought I’d keep still to-night, but I 
just can’t. I won’t make no long speech, 
though. But, brethren, when you tell about 
the love of God in Christ Jesus, I must 
speak. I’ve heard about a man who after 
the war was marking the grave of a sol- 
dier and weeping over it. Folks around 
found out he wasn’t a relative of the man 
buried there, and by and by somebody said, 
‘What is all this for? what did he ever do 
for youf and the man broke out: ‘Do? 
He died for me f That is what comes rush- 


144 


I)R. ORANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


ing over me when somebody talks about the 
Saviour. And to think that I have grown 
gray before I ever would let myself believe 
it! Now, if there is a stupid, tired, igno- 
rant soul here to-night, let “that soul try to 
realize ‘ He died for me.’ He lived for us 
too ; and that is what is beginning to make 
all my poor dull, tangled-up life seem like 
a straight path of light right on to a land 
of glory. Yes, life is bright, and death is 
now to me brighter yet. Deacon Hopkins 
took me yesterday away off over the hill to 
see a poor old creature dying with consump- 
tion. She’d just been a-coughing and chok- 
ing, so she couldn’t gasp out a single word, 
but she told the whole story of her soul’s 
faith in a way, I can tell ye, I wouldn’t have 
understood six weeks ago. The deacon, ses 
he, ‘ Sister, I think I know where your trust 
is ?’ The blood was settling purple-like for 
death in those poor hands of hers ; she 
couldn’t speak, but she lifted them of a 
sudden, palms up, touching each with a 
fore finger and her eyes toward heaven, as 
if she said, ‘ Not me, not me, but He whose 
hands were once pierced with nails for me.’ 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 145 

Oh, can any mortal, can any weary, lone- 
some soul, resist the love of Christ?’’ 

“That is the very man who asked me 
about six weeks ago if I was a Christian,” 
thought Helen, “ but he did not seem then 
as he does to-night. They are Presbyterians 
here too ; I supposed only Methodists talked 
like this. Maria, however, cannot be a 
Methodist.” 

After Uncle Zeb’s remarks. Judge Balcom 
made a very sounding and elaborate speech 
to the effect that there was an alphabet of 
religious thought and experience — that many 
Christians were in the a b c class. This was 
well, but let such babes in spiritual matters 
be meek ; let them not be trying to teach 
when they had but learned first principles. 
What the judge meant was not very clear to 
any one, unless it might have been to Uncle 
Zeb. Helen merely received the impression 
that the judge’s own religious education must 
be in a very advanced stage of progress, for 
surely he intended to convey that idea ; and 
who should know better about his condition 
than he himself? 

Just before the last hymn she was aware 
10 


146 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


that the judge was looking at her in a very 
steadfast, business-like way. After the bene- 
diction he came to her directly and inquired, 
“Are you the young woman living with 
Dr. Grantley?’’ 

A girl of fifteen does not think herself a 
“ woman,” and with a dim notion that he was 
asking for Mrs. Tibbits, who was not so very 
old, she replied, 

“ I am Helen Grantley.” 

“And are you bearing the yoke yet, or are 
you still accused under the law ?” 

“ I — I — am living there yet,” stammered 
Helen, wholly ignorant of his intention then, 
and later when he added dictatorially, 

“ You had best remain to the inquiry- 
meeting and state your case to me.” 

Did he suppose she had property and 
wanted to consult a lawyer to change her 
guardian? Had Mrs. Tibbits been telling 
people how uncomfortable her life was? 

“ I have nothing to say to any one ; I am 
poor and dependent on the doctor. I have 
no claim on him, so I suppose I ought to be 
grateful for my support.” 

“Most certainly — most certainly you 


DR. QRANTLEY'S NEJOHBORR. 147 

ought/' returned the judge, puzzled in his 
turn. 

‘‘ If you’re going home now, Miss Helen,” 
put in Uncle Zeb’s kindly voice, “ I’ll sort o’ 
see you safe to your gate ; there isn’t no moon 
up yet, and it’s darkish.” 

Miss Grantley will remain for the next 
meeting and have some private conversation 
with me,” said the judge, rather loftily. 

‘‘ Oh no, I have nothing to say to you, 
and should not think of saying it in such a 
place if I had,” said Helen, walking away 
quickly and gladly with Uncle Zeb. 

Yes, Uncle Zeb had only just learned his 
alphabet, but every letter in it was to him 
a beautiful golden one. He longed to give 
some person as ignorant as he had been the 
key to heavenly lore ; so, as he walked along 
by the young girl, he told her simply what 
had come into his life since that Sunday they 
were last together. 

He returned to the church after leaving 
her, wishing to learn if the meetings were 
to be continued throughout the week, the 
attendance having fallen off somewhat. He 
met Judge Balcorn, who told him they would 


148 DB. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

be held every alternate evening, and then 
asked, 

“Is that girl a convert?’^ 

“ No.” 

“ I thought not. Somebody spoke to me 
of her, and I intended to reach her a help- 
ing hand. She appears stupid, or possibly 
she is hardened. If she has to hear the 
wicked conversation of that ungodly Grant- 
ley, no doubt she is morally blind.” 

“Dr. Grantley is not a first-rate guide 
for a young girl. I’m proper sorry for her ; 
she needs help. She didn’t say very much 
to me to-night, but I kind o’ made out the 
lay of the land. If she — poor young crea- 
ture ! — comes out and says she is going to 
try and live the best life she can find out 
about, she has just got to give up some- 
thin’, and that right straight off,” said Un- 
cle Zeb slowly ; adding in a minute, “ I de- 
clare, I was put to it to tell her what to do 
— that is, to know what was her duty.” 

“ I think you would have done better if 
you had left her to me. Brother Potter. The 
zeal of an immature Christian has, in a meas- 
ure, its own excuse, but it is wise to reflect 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 149 

that no one is gifted with a sanctified judg- 
ment in the outset of the course. What 
was the cause of your discomfiture?^’ 

“If anything stands in the way of her 
coming out, judge?” 

“ Say to her at once, ‘ If thy right hand 
offend thee, cut it off.’ I’ve no doubt she, 
poor sinner! clings to some carnal pleasure 
— dancing, very likely. You should have 
dealt very plainly with the young woman. 
She must yield up her will and affections.” 

“I said pretty much that to her, judge, 
and I told her we’d stand by her, we’d help 
her in every way, to the best of our ability. 
Was I rash?” 

“ We covenant to do that, Mr. Potter, in 
our church-vows.” 

“Wa’ll, then, the thing is right here in 
a shape like this : the girl hasn’t a cent in 
her own right — is utterly dependent on Dr. 
Grantley. He clothes, feeds and keeps her 
without work. He does it because she is 
distantly related to him. To-night, just 
afore she set out for church, he sort o’ give 
her a choice : she could stay with him if she 
made no claim to being a Christian — shut 


150 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


the bushel down tight, as a patent cover 
over her light, if so be she was to get a 
light in her candlestick — or she could walk 
right straight out of his house and his 
care. That^s what she said as we was going 
home. Would you have counseled her to 
quit ? Of course you would, though — didn’t 
I just hear your opinion about giving up?” 

The judge was amazed, shocked, but chief- 
ly that Uncle Zeb should take the liberty of 
interpreting him to himself. He hastened 
to put in a protest : 

“We were not speaking of — of houses and 
lands, but of states of mind and of sinful 
indulgences. The young woman must be 
discreet. The doctor is her natural pro- 
tector, and has a limited right to control 
her conduct. She must not rush into the 
world having no means of support — ” 
“But for principle, judge, remember; and 
she would come right to us of course,” said 
Uncle Zeb, with a twinkle in his eye. 

There were reproof and dignity in his 
companion’s mien as he exclaimed, 

“ Beware of fanaticism, of appeals to pas- 
sion, my dear brother Potter. This is a very 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 151 

delicate matter. I propose we leave it en- 
tirely to Mr. Halsay, with whom the care 
of souls is a profession. Neither you nor 
I can advise a young, foolish girl to take 
any hasty step which she may bitterly re- 
gret — much less must she be encouraged to 
look to us for her support and maintenance.’’ 

Uncle Zeb having reached a corner, the 
judge parted with him, turning toward his 
home, which was the most pretentious dwell- 
ing of the Corners. His humble companion 
bad him good-night with an expression half 
comical, half sad. He did not think the 
judge was a hypocrite — he knew him to be 
well-meaning and a man of integrity, even 
though stingy and very opinionated. A 
great writer has said, “ We only believe as 
deep as we live.” The depths of Judge 
Balcom’s heart had never been stirred by 
any strong emotion, any great impulse of 
love toward God or his fellow-man ; and 
this was a fact vaguely apprehended by 
Uncle Zeb thus early in his association with 
him as a Christian brother. 

When Mr. Potter left Helen that night 
she was in a strange frame of mind — one 


152 BB. GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBOBS. 

in which Judge Balcom would certainly not 
have been able to understand or help her. 
She found the front-door open, but no one 
in the dimly-lighted room first entered. 
Evidently, Mrs. Tibbits had gone to bed, 
and the doctor might have been called away. 
Helen was singularly indifferent and unde- 
monstrative at all times, but a trifle sudden- 
ly overcame her, the recollection of Judge 
Balcom^s words, “ young womanP What 
sort of a woman could she be? To what 
good thing could she ever attain ? The 
girFs whole nature was awake and clamor- 
ing. She knew not how to still it into dumb- 
ness again. With a cry as of physical pain 
she bowed her head and burst into tears. 

“ What is the matter T asked Dr. Grant- 
ley, suddenly uprising from a sofa in shadow. 
‘‘Are you ill, Helen?” 

His tone was so humane that for a mo- 
ment she did not know who spoke. As a 
physician he was always more agreeable than 
as a man. As she made no reply, he cross- 
ed the room, turned on a fuller light, and 
felt her pulse, or would have done so had she 
not snatched her hand back quickly, saying. 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 153 

“ I am well enough in body.” 

“But not in mind? Well, mind and 
body act together; what is the trouble? 
Maybe I can ease it off with something 
or other.” 

The girl’s eyes were black with excite- 
ment, her cheeks were scarlet, and the doc- 
tor, studying her, said to himself, “She is 
hysterical ; they have wrought on her feel- 
ings down there, and this is the result. I 
never knew she could get excited before ; it 
is rather interesting.” — But aloud he repeat- 
ed firmly, “ What is it?” 

For the same reason that people took dis- 
agreeable potions or tried to do painful things 
when he bade them, Helen, almost to her 
own surprise, answered, “ I am miserable and 
discontented ;” then waited to hear a sarcasm, 
but none came. The doctor drew his chair 
close to hers and watched her thoughtfully a 
moment : 

“ Why are you miserable ?” 

“ Because I am good for notliing. I have 
no ability or chance to be better or to know 
anything. I ought to be thankful to you 
for food and shelter — perhaps it is wicked 


154 DR. ORANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

tliat I am not — but I don’t seem to be thank- 
ful for just living if I have all there is for 
me. I don’t want to be another Mrs. Tib- 
bits.” 

I don’t think you will resemble her in 
the least,” said Dr. Grantley, dryly. 

No, I shall be worse. I am growing 
worse every day. But I don’t wish to be 
bad ; I would like to be good.” 

There was something so child- like in the 
tone of the young girl as she half sobbed 
out these words that the seemingly hard 
man at her side returned, in the kindest 
way he had ever used toward her, 

‘‘ You are likely to grow up all right. 
You have good blood in you; your mother 
was a lady and your father a scholar — a 
man of some spirit too, if he was a parson. 
As to your not knowing anything, the house 
is full of books. I do not choose to have 
you attend school here, because the school 
commissioners are a set of dumb-heads who 
refused to act on my suggestions in regard 
to matters I can judge of better than they 
can ; but I thought you were doing well 
enough. To-morrow I will examine you, 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


155 


and if you are anxious to learn regular 
lessons, I will set them for you, and hear 
you recite them myself.” 

Helen made no answer. It seemed like 
a dream. She knew that Dr. Grantley was a 
finely-educated man, but she would as soon 
have expected the czar of all the E-ussias to 
act as her teacher as to have the doctor pro- 
pose to hear her lessons. 

He looked at her a while in silence, then 
carelessly inquired, 

“ What did they make you believe down 
at the church to-night?” 

A strange questioning look came into 
Helen’s eyes ; she grew pale, and uncon- 
sciously arose from her seat, saying, 

“ I thank you very much ; I thought you 
meant to make me ignorant and miserable. 
I would like — to — like you. I have not 
liked you, and it seemed mean while I was 
eating your bread. But if you think some- 
thing is wrong or silly, and I think it is 
right, you will be angry, for I must keep 
trying to know about — these — Christians, if 
they are better or — happier — for what they 
believe.” 


156 


DB. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


He gave her a slightly unceremonious 
push back into the chair, and there actually 
seemed on his face a grim smile: 

“ You are not deceitful, it seems, if you 
are quiet, and you have the Grantley will 
to have your will. We are getting acquaint- 
ed famously. Well, go to bed ; I will give 
you a quieting powder that will counteract 
any of Uncle Zeb’s attempts to get the 
Grantley out of you. He is the biggest 
toad down there in the puddle just now, it 
seems. So you have not liked me much 
he added in a slower tone. ‘‘ Well, perhaps 
I have not made myself always agreeable, 
but Tibbits is wearing, and you never seem- 
ed to be of any consequence any way. If 
there is good stuff in you, and you can show 
it, we will take a new start. Good-night.’’ 

He took out his pocket-case of medicine, 
prepared her a powder, told her to keep her 
nerves in order, and then sent her away with 
a hand-shake. She went to her room, laid 
down the powder on the bed and stared at 
it, thinking that if she had already swal- 
lowed it she might believe that she was 
losing all sense of realities under its effects. 


DR. QRiANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 157 

Was there real humanity in Dr. Grantley, 
after all ? If he realized she was unhappy 
would he care? It seemed to-night as if 
he had just awakened to her existence. 

At breakfast-time he was as silent and stern 
as ever ; soon after he drove away, and was ab- 
sent for hours. But late in the afternoon Hel- 
en heard him calling her to come to his office, 
which occupied one wing of the old-fash- 
ioned house. He had a pile of school-books 
before him, and, ordering her to sit down, 
he questioned her a while on their contents, 
and then gave her lessons to prepare. After 
that he quietly drew her on to tell of her 
reading, what she liked and remembered. 
He was cold and business-like in manner, 
but not at all rough. It even seemed to 
the girl that he treated her with a respect 
never before accorded her. When she was 
going away with the books he remarked, 

“You said you did not know anything 
You are not a fool ; you can learn as fast 
and as much as you like. You have read 
more than girls of your age usually read of 
books worth calling literature.’’ 

She had reached the door when he said. 


158 DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

Wait a minute. I suppose girls like you 
think themselves miserable when they have 
no fine feathers and no giggling girls to tell 
their secrets to. You are at liberty to make 
friends for yourself, and to bring them here 
if you will keep them away from my part 
of the house. Take this and buy finery if 
you want it.’’ 

After long self-repression Helen was too 
shy, as well as too much astonished, to do 
anything but catch her breath and retreat 
with the roll of money thrust into her hands. 
On any ordinary occasion she avoided Mrs. 
Tibbits, but in a time like this somebody 
must tell her if she were in her right mind. 
She walked slowly through the dark inter- 
mediate rooms until she reached the kitch- 
en, where the housekeeper sat sewing by the 
open window. The kitchen was the only 
really pleasant room in the house, for sun- 
shine was always here, with no fear of Dr. 
Grantley’s intrusion. Helen, to heighten 
the effect of her communication, seated her- 
self near Mrs. Tibbits and began to count 
out her greenbacks. 

“What bill is that for?' There is more 


DH. ORANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 159 

than the flour comes to. Why, there are 
three tens and a five 

‘‘Yes, and it is all mine. Dr. Grantley 
wants me to buy myself new clothes with 
it.’^ 

“ Going into society with him perhaps,” 
laughed Mrs. Tibbits feebly. Helen so sel- 
dom jested it was worth her pains to make 
a similar eflbrt. 

“ No ; I am only going to school to him. 
He is to hear my lessons every day at the 
time that suits him best. I do not know 
what it does mean,” she added, entering 
warmly into the story of her late inter- 
views with the head of the house. 

The whole matter was inexplicable to Mrs. 
Tibbits, who rolled up her watery little eyes, 
clasped her hands and ejaculated at intervals, 

“For the land's sake! for the Ian — d's 
sake 1” 

What did move Dr. Grantley ? Who 
knows? Perhaps some impulse of a once- 
generous nature was stirred at sight of an 
intellectual want to which he could minister. 
Perhaps conscience awakened in him after 
Uncle Zeb's rebukes, and he reflected that 


160 


DR. OBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


he owed some duty to this child in his care, 
for as a child he had heretofore looked on 
Helen. Perhaps Deacon Hopkins’s prayers 
had something to do with it. 

‘‘ And now,” thought the young girl, “ I 
shall be happy, for I can be and do and 
learn whatever I like; as to the rest, that 
which old Mr. Potter talks of, I cannot 
tell ; I do not understand.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


“The world promiseth things temporal and mean, and is 
served with great eagerness. I promise things most high and 
eternal, and yet the hearts of men remain torpid and insen- 
sible.” 

T here was at Conesus Corners a little 
old-fashioned inn, as quaint and home- 
like as if it had been for a hundred years in 
some quiet English hamlet instead of being 
of no interest, ancient or historic. It was 
enough for Mr. Halsay that it was called 
“The Conesus Temperance House,” that it 
had good food and- neat rooms, and that here 
he could board, having his study in a little 
room of the church. He was not so desir- 
ous of a strictly private life as to attempt 
making a home for himself in any of the 
families of his parishioners. Some of them 
thought this unfortunate for him. Judge 
Balcom was secretly much chagrined when 
Mr. Halsay did not catch at an intimation 
from him that, although a boarder in his 
11 161 


162 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


family was heretofore an' unheard-of thing, 
he might in this case be induced to open 
his door to his own pastor. He added that , 
from out of his long experience with the 
Corners church he could undoubtedly give j 
wholesome counsel in Mr. Halsay’s times | 
of need. The minister, to his » surprise, I 
treated the proposal lightly, telling him he 
was such an objectionable person to any 
housekeeper that he had best stay at an 
inn. He said he wanted to walk his room 
as he composed his sermons, to forget the j 
dinner-hour and keep nobody waiting, to be | 
silent without the risk of seeming unsocial, 
with other objections equally trivial in the 
judge’s eyes. 

But if Mr. Halsay did not board in any 
private family, he had ample opportunities 
to study the homes of his parish, and, with 
few exceptions, the peculiarities of their in- 
mates. When the unusual interest in the 
extra meetings of the church perceptibly 
abated, all the people who had thronged 
to hear the new minister preach seemed 
moved by a common desire to make a tea- 
party for him or to see him by their fire- 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 163 

sides in some simpler way. Uncle Zeb had 
at his hospitable big house a “church so- 
ciable,” and not a man, woman or child who 
was ever one of the congregation escaped 
his invitation. All the poor were out in 
full force, and the sick shared in the good 
things provided, for the supper to which 
they could not come went to them. It was 
a party after the minister’s heart, because 
a great many people were brought together 
for the first time in a friendly, social way. 
Uncle Zeb invited Dr. Grantley, Mrs. Tib- 
bits and Helen. The doctor received his 
invitation, sent through Helen, with a scorn- 
ful laugh, but he said nothing against the ac- 
ceptance of the others, to whom a “ sociable ” 
was an event. 

“ I haven’t been anywhere for so long,” 
declared Mrs. Tibbits as they started for 
the Potters’ house that evening, “ that I am 
in a regular twitter of excitement. How 
ever shall I enter the room ?” 

“ Why, walk in, I beg of you,” said Hel- 
en coolly ; “ I am sure any unusual gymnas- 
tics will be uncalled for.” 

“ How can you be so composed, when you 


164 DR. GRANTLET'S NEIGHBORS. 

never go anywhere? How do you know 
that you will behave properly?” 

“I shall use my common sense.” 

‘‘To be sure; I never thought of that. 
Well, then, too, you never looked so well in 
your life as you do now-a-days; and that 
gives a body pluck sometimes. You appear 
like other girls in that new dress, if it is 
plain, and since you have been to Sunday- 
school you are more like other folks.” 

“ Thank you,” returned Helen, rather 
cynically, but Mrs. Tibbits, not heeding the 
tone, thought her only grateful. 

In many ways the young girl was chang- 
ing rapidly. If she was not happy, she was 
far less morbid ; life had begun to be of in- 
terest to her. The day she carried her books 
back to Dr. Grantley’s office and recited her 
well-learned lesson she discovered that no 
better teacher could be desired, and he de- 
cided that she had a mind worth cultivatins:, 
although he did not mention the fact to her. 
She spent no more hours moping, but stud- 
ied with zeal and ambition. The Sunday- 
school had indeed done her good in several 
ways. The immediate results were of the 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 165 

character noticed by Mrs. Tibbits. In count- 
less little modifications of dress and manner 
she showed that the contact with girls of her 
own age had been salutary and timely. Her 
teacher was Miss Eunice Hopkins. She re- 
ceived Helen with no more and with not less 
cordiality than she would have shown to- 
ward any other young girl ; and this was 
well : had she been too friendly, Helen, 
prejudiced by Dr. Grantley, would have 
thought her hypocritical ; had she shown 
any trace of aversion, the youn^ sharp eyes 
would have detected that. Perhaps the girls 
could not have had a better teacher in some 
respects. They were all at an age when a 
more emotional woman might easily have 
turned them toward religious sentimentality. 
Not so did Eunice ; she emphasized the do- 
ing right, the being right, their moral ob- 
ligations toward God and man, and she let 
them know that moods and tenses of mere 
feeling were of slight consideration in her 
opinion. Helen was learning of her to 
think, to search her Bible, to ask daily for 
light from above, and to use 'what light she 
already had. 


166 DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

But to return to Uncle Zeb’s party, on 
the way to which we left Mrs. Tibbits and 
Helen. The former contrived to pass suc- 
cessfully through the ordeal of entrance, and 
Helen soon found herself in a group of class- 
mates. They were in fine spirits, and chat- 
tering as such girls always can and usually 
do chatter. 

He comes the nearest to my ideal of — 
well, of a hero such as we read about in sto- i 
ries — the nearest of any one I ever saw,’’ 
Bell Haton jvas remarking enthusiastically. 

Why, Bell Haton,” exclaimed Anne 
Dunlap, ‘‘ only last week you said your 
ideal hero was always sad and — saucy, 
wasn’t it?” j 

“ Oh, Anne — ‘ saucy ’ ? I said satirical.” 

“Well, Herbert Balcom certainly is not 
sad, whatever else he may be. — Good-even- 
ing, Helen. Have you had a glimpse of 
the judge’s idol?” asked Anne gayly, mak- 
ing a place for the new-comer. 

“ I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Have you never heard of the judge’s 
son? The father never can have talked 
five minutes with you then.” 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 167 

I have seen him when he has been at 
home in vacations, I believe. He is very 
handsome and very remarkable for some- 
thing, is he not?” 

For everything,” returned Anne. “ Why, 
according to the judge, the wonderful, admir- 
able Cr — what do you call him — whom we 
read of, must have been overrated ; and no- 
body before this date has knQwn Latin or 
Greek or mathematics, or any other ’tics or 
’isms or ’ologies, like unto ‘my son Herbert.’” 

“ He must be uncommonly brilliant, 
Anne,” persisted Bell Haton, “ for others 
besides his own father say he is.” 

“Oh, of course. I know he has always 
taken all the prizes there were to take at 
school and college, but we don’t care. He 
won’t look at ‘ bread-and-butter ’ school- 
girls of our age,” said Anne cruelly. Bell 
had aspirations toward young - ladyhood 
which practical Anne thought altogether 
premature. 

Judge Balcom might not have seen fit to 
attend this “ mixed ” assemblage at Mr. Pot- 
ter’s if his only son had not been at home. 
This being the case, he never failed to appear 


168 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


in every public place with him. He was a 
young man of whom any father might be 
proud. The judge was a handsome man, 
and his son was still handsomer. The judge 
was pompous ; Herbert was truly courteous. 
The father had natural abilities, but in early 
life lacked means of culture; his boy had 
received every advantage that could be pro- 
cured for him. While his father’s wealth 
was generously poured out for his education, 
for books, for long, expensive tours, Herbert 
never failed to reward that partial generosity 
by improving himself to the utmost. He 
inherited none of the judge’s narrowness; 
he was warm-hearted and liberal, singularly 
unspoiled by indulgence and flattery. 

Mr. Halsay, who had heard his praises 
sounded until he was heartily tired of his 
name even before his arrival from college, 
was agreeably surprised by the young man. 
He watched him with interest, noting how 
genially he recalled to Uncle Zeb some boy- 
ish prank for which the old man had once 
given him a shaking ; then seeing him spend 
ten minutes with Eunice Hopkins, and act- 
ually getting her to smile on him the remain- 


1)R. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 169 

der of the evening. He did not seem to care 
for the young girls’ society in any marked 
degree, and if any of them were (as Bell 
Haton was) disappointed on this account, 
they admired him none the less. 

“Are ye goin’ to keep Bert home a spell 
now?” asked Mr. Potter as the judge stop- 
ped to speak to Deacon Hopkins, who was 
chatting with his host in a quiet corner. 

“ For a few weeks. I’m going to turn him 
loose on my farm, let him hunt and fish a 
little, then in September he sails for Europe.” 

“ What ! ye don’t say ? What is he 
takin’ himself to furrin parts for?” asked 
Uncle Zeb curiously. 

“ Well, the boy is ambitious — I won’t deny 
that fact,” admitted the judge with a sort of 
lofty frankness. “ He thinks there is a cult- 
ure to be acquired in the study of new peo- 
ples, arts, continental languages, and all that, 
not to be obtained by any prolonged sojourn 
in Conesus Corners.” 

“ Like as not now, there mebbe,” com- 
mented Uncle Zeb ; adding, “ Will he go to 
the Holy Land ? Mr. Halsay was a-telling 
us about his visit there?” 


170 DR. GRANTLF.Y'S NEIGHBORS. 

‘‘I shall give him a letter of credit that 
will take him from ‘ pole to pole/ as the 
hymn says. He deserves it — he has studied 
hard. If ever a chap left a better record in 
college, I’d like to see him.” 

“That must be so wonderful,” said the 
deacon dreamily, “ to walk the streets of old 
Jerusalem, to stand where John and Peter 
and Christ himself once stood.” 

The judge that moment received some new 
idea, for he exclaimed, 

“ By the way, deacon, next week we’ll set- 
tle that little affair of ours. I find I must 
scrape together mv pennies in order to get 
Bert off.’^ 

“ I have not forgotten,” answered the dea- 
con ; and Judge Balcom moved on, saying, 

“ I must take Mr. Halsay to task for the 
closing part of his Wednesday evening lec- 
ture. I disagree with him very decidedly.” 

“ I thought you was out of Balcom ’s 
clutches, so to speak, deacon; hain’t that 
mortgage been paid up yet?” 

“ I am sorry to say it is not, but I hope 
to pay the last cent next week. My last 
year’s apple-crop was a perfect failure— 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


171 


never had such a year since I farmed it; 
but we’ve been mighty economical. Eu- 
nice is a famous manager, and to-night I’ve 
got the wherewith to pay the judge. I shall 
be glad, for he is very business-like and 
prompt.” 

‘‘Very — as prompt, every whit, as the 
Bible character that took his neighbor by 
the throat while he was a-requestin’ of him 
to settle up square ; but he is honest, Bal- 
com is, if he ain’t over and above merciful. 
Hello, now ! who is this leetle youngster 
with a head like a dandelion just blossom- 
ed out?” 

“ This,” answered the deacon tenderly, “ is 
my Benjamin’s child.” 

‘‘ Sure enough ! I heerd about that. 
Well, it was rough all ’round. There ain’t 
any Hopkins about that face, though,” con- 
tinued Uncle Zeb, gazing at Yolande, who 
studied him in turn. 

She was a beautiful child, now that coun- 
try air and good food had brought a soft 
color to her rounded cheeks ; moreover, she 
inherited from her French mother pretty, 
gentle manners, which made her singular- 


172 DM. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

ly attractive by contrast with the little rus- 
tics at the Corners. She climbed into her 
grandfather’s lap, slipped her tiny hands 
into his big withered ones, and contentedly 
watched the company which filled the low, 
old-fashioned rooms. The young girls found 
her out soon and petted her — all but Helen. 
She was attracted by the child, by the dea- 
con, even by her grave peculiar teacher Miss 
Eunice ; but, warned by Mrs. Tibbits, she re- 
frained from any manifestation of her inter- 
est in the Hopkins family. She did not want 
to have her new liberty of church-going cur- 
tailed. 

‘‘ Good-evening, Miss Helen.” said Mr. 
Halsay, coming to her as she stood for a 
moment alone. I received the messao:e 
you sent me through Mr. Potter, and I am 
very glad you are able to study at home with 
so fine a teacher as Dr. Grantley must be. 
I have not forgotten our talk in the woods 
that day. I was trying to plan how to help 
you in your education when the message 
came. I hope your life is more satisfying 
now than you found it then ?” 

Yes — and no,” replied Helen slowly, 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 173 

waiting as if she thought he expected her 
to say more, yet not herself knowing just 
what to say. 

“ It is ‘ yes ’ perhaps, because you are go- 
ing to ‘know something’ now, to use your 
own words,” he suggested kindly. 

“ I think that makes me much more con- 
tented,” she replied. 

“Does the ‘no’ mean, then, that this 
other knowledge of which we talked seems 
as far off and as unattainable as ever? I 
hope, my child, you are not mystifying your- 
self needlessly. Belief and love come easily 
to the simple-hearted through prayer. Do 
you keep your promise to me?” 

“I have sometimes forgotten it, but not 
often.” ' 

“ All will be well with you,” he returned, 
and was about to add something when Judge 
Balcom bore down on the minister, and with- 
out so much as a nod to Helen engaged him 
in the defence of his last sermon. 

Left to herself, Helen’s attention was ab- 
sorbed by the judge’s son. Not that he 
came and talked to her — he was ignorant 
of her existence — but he was the centre of 


174 


DR. QRANTLRY^S NEIGHBORS. 


a group not far away which seemed pleased 
with his conversation. 

‘‘ If one were in his place/’ she thought 
to herself, ‘^life would be richly worth liv- 
ing. What desirable thing is there which 
he does not possess? He is ready now for 
anything, and he knows what power is — 
power of personal attraction, power of in- 
tellect, of position. He can make his own 
way anywhere, can do anything within rea- 
son a man would wish to do. I wish I were 
in his place. I fear I am naturally restless 
and discontented. I envied Anne Dunlap 
because she had pretty dresses and friends 
and could go to school. Now that these last 
are within my reach I envy somebody else. 
But there is Mrs. Tibbits making eyes at 
me; she is afraid the doctor will scold if 
she stays later. Well, I will go. I won’t 
torment her hereafter as I have done. She 
is not to blame for not being brilliant; she 
did not make herself. Heigho ! what was I 
made for, anyway?” 


CHAgTER XV. 


“ When a man hath compunction of heart, then is the whole 
world grievous and bitter unto him.” 



)EFOKE knowing her niece Eunice Hop- 


kins had mentally divided little girls of 
Yolande’s age into two classes — those who 
were ‘‘seen, but not heard those who were 
given over to dirt, deceit and to taking the 
biggest piece of cake on the plate. Yolande 
was of neither class ; she was always sensi- 
tive, often shy, then again as outspoken as 
Eunice herself. She kept her person and 
attire as neat and dainty as a veritable little 
Frenchwoman, but she persisted in filling 
all Eunice’s vases, cups and tumblers with 
wild flowers, and she preferred to roam the 
woods instead of learning to sew or acquir- 
ing little housewifely habits. She did not 
talk much to Eunice, whose answers were 
rarely satisfactory and seldom adapted to 
her comprehension. Eunice, on her part. 


175 


176 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

never could follow the child’s peculiar trains 
of thought, and often considered them very 
“ nonsensical.” The old deacon understood 
her more readily, and humored her in many 
a whim. He could often calm her when, 
strangely enough, methodical, practical Eu- 
nice had excited her whole imaginative na- 
ture. One day the child was following a 
toad, greatly interested in his motions; all 
at once she left him, seated herself on the 
great stone at the kitchen-door and asked, 

‘‘Aunt Eunice, what is eternity like?” 

“ It is like to-day if to-day had never had 
any beginning and never was to have any 
end,” replied her aunt in a tone which 
implied, “ That question can be disposed of 
once for all.” 

“How can it be so?” persisted Yolande. 
“I can’t think about it.” 

“Of course you can’t; it is a mystery. 
You can just suppose it is like a great circle 
or ring turning and turning, and never stop- 
ping.” 

Yolande said no more, only pondered a 
while, but about eleven o’clock that ni^ht 
she startled her aunt by exclaiming in the 


im. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


177 


dark by her bedside, Aunt Eunice, 

I never shall go to sleep ! What made you 
have it a big ringf^ 

“A what?’’ called Eunice, sitting upright 
and clutching out after the slim figure. 

Oh, that awful turning ring like eter- 
nity right over my bed, you know, and I 
can’t forget it. I shut my eyes, and it gets 
big and draws in small, and then grows big 
and turns fast, faster, but never is going to 
stop. What made you start it a ring. Aunt 
Eunice?” she wailed dismally. 

‘‘ It’s the measles ; they have got ’em at 
the Bend,” ejaculated Eunice, laying hold 
of a bedpost, as if taking it into her confi- 
dence. “ She’s been exposed, has taken cold, 
and instead of coming out they’ve gone to 
her head. She must have a sweat the first 
thing.” 

She hurried on her clothes and began to 
make a fire in the kitchen, the noise of which 
aroused the deacon, who hastened to join Eu- 
nice. 

‘‘I’m not sick one bit, grandpa,” cried 
Yolande plaintively from Eunice’s bed, 
where she had been hastily thrust. He 
12 


178 DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

went into the room, heard her story, and 
instituted his course of treatment. Seeing 
that a wearisome idea was tormenting the 
nervous child, he told her a story of the 
colt in the north pasture while Eunice made 
ginger tea. He broke the “ ring,’’ and then 
changed the idea by talking to her of a beau- 
tiful life in heaven growing more blessed for 
ever ; then, slipping away to the pantry, he 
brought “ Benjamin’s child ” a bowl of bread 
and milk. When Eunice’s preparations for 
the ‘‘sweat” were complete she found Yo- 
lande in the deacon’s arms, and both of them 
peacefully sleeping in her Boston rocking- 
chair. From that night Eunice saw fit to 
send the child to her grandfather when there 
were mysteries to be discussed. 

At first Yolande was to her aunt not Ben- 
jamin’s child ; she was that French woman's 
child, and Eunice’s heart did not at once 
go out toward her. But Yolande was too 
bright, too sweet, to be long unappreciated. 
Moreover, Eunice was in time convinced 
that the child’s mother had been exceed- 
ingly lovable and possessed of qualities that 
would have won even Eunice’s esteem. In 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 179 

the little oak chest that had held all the 
child’s possessions when she returned with 
the deacon had been put her mother’s pa- 
pers. There was a pathetic little book of 
the nature of a diary, begun the first day 
the young mother took entire charge of her 
baby. It was meant to be “ The Story of 
our Yolande,” for her to read when she 
became a woman. It wove into its simple 
pages the mother’s thoughts and hopes, her 
own experiences, as well as, what comforted 
Eunice greatly, constant allusions to Benja- 
min. He was so ‘‘ kind,” so free from evil 
habits, so “ good,” in the eyes of the loving 
young wife. With the book were records 
of the mother’s birth and parentage ; her 
mother had been of a fine old family in 
Bouen. Little did Eunice care for ‘‘ French 
aristocracy,” but if Yolande’s mother had 
been a ‘‘ player,” it comforted Eunice to 
know that she was at the same time a re- 
spectable woman. She stowed away the rec- 
ords of the Boulaye family carefully, and 
told the deacon that she sincerely hoped 
Benjamin’s wife’s father would never appear 
to claim kinship to Yolande. 


180 I)K GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

The deacon thought there was no proba- 
bility that he would do this, inasmuch as he 
had not troubled himself to find his daugh- 
ter in her illness and poverty. 

Yolande, since her arrival at the Corners, 
had gone constantly to church ; she had been 
taken to the sociable ; and, in short, wher- 
ever Eunice and the deacon went together 
she had gone, simply because they could not 
leave her alone at home. She had noticed 
that here everybody seemed to know every- 
body else, and the Corners to her childish 
fancy was a place where people were far 
kinder than they were in New York. When 
they met her here playing under the trees, 
they talked to her and seemed to be inter- 
ested in her. Presuming on this fact, little 
Yolande planned one day an expedition of 
her own. She had seen the inside of sev- 
eral of the houses near the Hopkins farm, 
but this big, old-fashioned one of Dr. Grant- 
ley she had not seen, and she knew nothing 
of its inmates. It was late one beautiful 
afternoon when, forgetting her white sun- 
bonnet left on a fence-post, the child stroll- 
ed away across the intervening pasture-land, 


DR. GBANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


181 


stopping in a great patch of ox-eyed daisies 
to gaze down into their white and golden 
upturned faces before she picked a long- 
stemmed bunch of them. There was no 
one in the Grantley garden with its strag- 
gling paths bordered with gooseberry-bushes, 
its vegetables, its sunflowers and double hol- 
lyhocks. Yolande’s great eyes saw every- 
thing. She meant to ask for one tall blue 
fleur-de-luce and plenty of cinnamon pinks. 
There was no one in the tidy kitchen, or in 
the long, gloomy hall, or in the darkened 
suite of rooms through which the child slip- 
ped like a stray sunbeam. She came at last 
to a door opening into a brightly-lighted and 
rather attractive apartment, where, with his 
back to the door, sat a gentleman. Sud- 
denly a late timidity awed her, and just over 
the threshold she stood still. Uncle Zeb 
was right when he said there was no ‘‘ Hop- 
kins in her face.^’ When sober, as now, no 
child was ever more like its mother. As if 
aware of something. Dr. Grantley turned 
and sat still in silent amazement, his startled 
eyes fixed on the little figure. Something 
in that gaze made her stammer gravely. 


182 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

‘‘ I was not going to make you scared. 
Mamma would not ever let me do so after 
I did it once — twice, I think it was, I made 
her start.” 

“ Who are you ? Come nearer and tell 
me what you want.” 

‘‘ Why, I don’t want anything ; I came 
visiting and to see what the inside of your 
house looked like. I like to see things and 
— people,” she added, slowly drawing near 
a step at a time, accustomed to obey, but 
not attracted by her sombre- faced questioner. 

He reached out his hand and moved her 
where the light from his window glistened 
on her soft curls and flushed cheeks. Her 
big, dark eyes were shyly turned on the 
clenched daisies. He almost shook her as 
he hurriedly repeated, 

‘‘ Who are you, I say ?” 

<< Why, I am Yolande.” 

Where on earth did you come from ?” 

“Over there;” and she pointed a small 
thumb toward the east. 

“From the Hopkins’s?” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Did old Hopkins send you ?” 


\ 


DR, GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 183 

She looked him full in the face now, puz- 
zled, then resentful : 

‘‘ It is not nice to say old Hopkins : you 
are old yourself, I guess, if your hair is not 
pretty and white. You have got ugly wrin- 
kles in your forehead, and I do not like you 
pretty much.” 

Did he send you ?” he persisted grimly. 

‘‘ No ; my grandpa is not home. Nobody 
sent me. I came, but I’ll go in a minute.” 

‘‘Do you live over there?” 

“Yes, for always now. I did not once 
time, though, but I never got daisies in New 
York, nor saw little calves nor chickens. I 
was lonesome there, because my mamma was 
very, very white and could not sit up ; she 
only coughed all day. I think she coughed 
all night, for she said I must not sleep with 
her, she would keep me awake. One night, 
when I was out of the room, she went right 
up into the sky. I would not have let her 
go if I had been there. I wanted my mam- 
ma — she was mm^;” and the great eyes 
slowly filled with tears. 

Dr. Grantley arose and pulled down the 
window-curtain with a jerk, muttering, 


184 


DR. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


‘‘ I believe they sent her, tricky old — 
If you have seen me and seen the house, 
you can go,’’ he added, turning his back on 
his small guest. 

‘‘ I think I will go ; I think we don’t like 
each other pretty much. The garden is 
nicer -where the gooseberries grow, and the 
hollyhocks nicer than the old books and 
bottles in here. Good-bye.” 

She was going to the door, trailing daisies, 
losing them out of her straggling bunch, but 
she looked back over her shoulder when he 
said. 

Let me look at you a minute longer, so 
I will know you next time 1 happen to see 
you in the streets or at play ; you will not 
ever come here. There are no children 
here ; we don’t wish any ; I don’t like chil- 
dren.” 

She understood perfectly that her six-foot 
host was trying to show her that unexpected 
calls like hers of to-day were unwelcome. 
She was quick, and also proud, with some- 
thing of her mother’s nature;. so when he 
held out a small coin to her she shook her 
yellow head, and, disappearing over the 


DE. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 185 

threshold, he heard the patter of her little 
feet across the hall-floor fainter and fainter. 
He fancied her flitting through the dark 
house behind and out into the sunshine with 
God’s other happy creatures — with birds and 
bees and gay butterflies. Yes, this man had 
fancies, and even sentiment ; he had a heart 
and a conscience, and sometimes the one ached 
and remorse awakened in the other. How 
passionately he had loved that other Yo- 
lande, who might have loved him in return 
if she had never known Benjamin Hopkins ! 
This lovely child brought back all his vain 
hopes, his reckless strivings to win what he 
believed would have made him happy, and 
perhaps good. But if she looked at him out 
of great soft brown eyes like her mother’s, 
she had made him remember who was her 
father, and how people had said if Benja- 
min Hopkins had never known Hr. Grant- 
ley he would never have been ruined. Yet 
in those days, gone now for ever, he had not 
meant deliberately to wreck the young man’s 
life — far from it. He had liked the frank, 
fun-loving young fellow. He was himself 
just tasting the gayest, wildest excitements 


186 DR. GBANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

of life in a great city, and he honestly 
thought it a pity that Ben should miss all 
these and . go prosing along like the farm- 
ers’ lads at the Corners. He had not 
counted on the Hopkins blood there was 
in him, the pertinacity, the “go in and go 
on,” that made him when once started stub- 
bornly refuse to go back. Yet when he saw 
this trait in Ben he liked him even better 
than he had liked him in his boyish days, 
»and if he would see the world who could 
show it to him more thoroughly than Grant- 
ley, whose college-life had been spent in the 
city, whose medical studies had been pursued 
in Paris ? So they were boon companions in 
New York until that night when they first 
met Yolande in her young beauty, her charm- 
ing ignorance. Her father was a gambler, a 
reckless, bad man, but he guarded his child 
well. He, the old Frenchman, made sure 
that Grantley loved her, that he reverenced 
her girlish, simple character, before he let 
him visit them and fed his hope of gaining 
Yolande’s love, even fooled him with the 
belief that she did already love him. Like 
a thunderbolt the knowledge one night came 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 187 

to him that she loved Benjamin Hopkins, 
the farmer^s son — that she had not a thought 
for him, the older, wiser, richer man. He 
was beside himself after that; he plunged 
into dissipations of every sort, and would 
gladly have dragged Ben after him. A 
whirlwind of anger, jealousy, wounded pride 
and revenge impelled him to first beg Yo- 
lande’s father to make her consent to marry 
him, then to cause Benjamin to appear to 
her bad and unworthy. Their marriage and 
flight removed them from his influence. 
His own father’s health failed. He resolved 
to be a man ; that for him meant to restrain 
himself, to stop gambling, stop drinking and 
to go to work in his chosen profession. He 
had a powerful will, and there was for him 
a grim delight in the fact, as he expressed it 
to himself, that ‘‘ Grantley had one mas- 
ter — Grantley.” 

He heard no more of Ben or of his young 
wife until nearly two years had passed. 
Then, going to Cincinnati to attend a med- 
ical convention, he had fallen in with some 
old chums who had been in the wild days 
of the past also Ben’s acquaintances. One of 


188 DB, GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBOBS. 

them knew of Ben’s whereabouts, and Grant- 
ley agreed to go with him to spend an even- 
ing with Hopkins and ‘Halk over old times.” 
On the way they stopped at a fashionable 
saloon ; Grantley drank moderately, allow- 
ing himself that privilege, as he assured 
himself, for the sake of politeness to his 
comrade, who drained more than one glass 
of brandy. 

When they arrived at their destination 
Ben was evidently not glad to see Grantley, 
and that enraged the man who had once 
known his unbounded influence over him. 
As the evening went by bad blood was stir- 
red. The mutual acquaintance who had 
brought Grantley felt something unpleasant 
in the air, and, being sufficiently under the 
effect of brandy to resent without under- 
standing it, grew personal and unpleasant 
in his remarks. Grantley coolly spurred him 
on while appearing as polished, as gentle- 
manly, as Ben had ever seen him. Ben sat 
near a little table of the plainly-furnished 
flat. There was a child’s rattle on the floor by 
Grantley’s chair, and through a half-closed 
door he heard at intervals a soft, low song 


DR. QRANTLEY\S NEIGHBORS. 189 

like a mother crooning to a baby. Bad and 
hardened as he was, of a sudden the impulse 
came to rise up and to go away from this 
home. No wonder was it that Ben was not 
glad to see the incarnation of all his old sins 
and temptations. It looked as if he had 
shaken off a little power of the past. He 
would not ask to see Yolande ; he would 
leave a courteous message for her and depart. 
He had scarcely done this first when his be- 
wildered, irritated comrade made to Ben a 
slighting remark about the “little French- 
woman.’’ Ben, overturning the table in his 
rage, rushed on him. The drunken fool drew 
his revolver; there was a scufile of a second. 
Grantley, although he sprang upon them to 
separate them, to disarm one, had not time to 
seize the pistol before the fatal shot was fired. 
As he grasped for the weapon it went off in 
the hand of his comrade, and was uncon- 
sciously thrust into his own, while Ben fell to 
the floor mortally wounded. Oh, the awful 
picture left for ever in his memory ! The 
friend of his boyhood bleeding at his feet; 
the only woman he ever loved crying out in 
anguish at the sight that met her eyes when. 


190 UR. GRANTLEY'S neighbors. 

white and breathless, slie rushed into his 
presence ! Was it any wonder that when the 
first awful horror was on him he had made no 
explanations, and Yolande, distracted by the 
tragedy, had made no accusations ? Later that 
night his comrade, sobered and wild with fear, 
had begged him to flee, that he might never 
be a witness to testify against him. The 
man easily slipped into deceit when, to his 
glad surprise, he learned from Yolande’s lips 
that she supposed Dr. Grantley had fired the 
shot, and for him to free himself from blame 
was comparatively easy, because Grantley had 
left the city at once. It would have been al- 
most as terrible to Grantley to have now been 
told that any one believed him to be the ac- 
tual destroyer of Hopkinses life as the state- 
ment had been overwhelming to the deacon 
when made by the dying woman. He was 
spared that horror this lovely afternoon as 
scene after scene of the past rose up to har- 
row his mind, but he had enough, more than 
enough, for his remorse to dwell on. Was it 
not bitter to realize that life held for him 
nothing sweet or satisfying — that he had 
nothing pleasant to look back on, nothing 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


191 


alluring in the future? He had no ambi- 
tion, no belief in any unselfish affection for 
him possessed by any human being. He 
had no God, no faith, no heaven. 

All this went through his thoughts as he 
stood waiting to know the child had left the 
house; but when, turning, he glanced out 
of the office- window and saw her moving 
slowly through the pasture daisies again, her 
head but little higher than the tallest of 
them, he suddenly wished she were just for 
a moment within his reach again. He want- 
ed to touch her soft hair, to see if her eyes 
could grow tender and wistful as the other 
Yolande’s sometimes had been. He sent her 
away because she was a Hopkins. Now, out 
of his reach under the summer sky, she was 
like a spirit of innocence, of a beauty and 
purity lost. Other men loved little ones 
like this — called them their own. It must 
make a man better. There was a saying — 
was it from the Bible? — “For I say unto 
you that in heaven their angels do always 
behold the face of my Father which — 

The office-bell rang sharply, and the pa- 
tient who entered immediately after the alarm 


192 


DK QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS, 


found Dr. Grantley as ready as ever for pro- 
fessional duties or for sarcastic witticisms. 

That evening Eunice and the deacon sat 
together in the porch, while Yolande on the 
lowest step listened to the crickets, or, look- 
ing up long and curiously, wondered if the 
countless little stars were not just golden 
heads of wheat in some celestial harvest- 
field ; they looked so to her. 

What has the little busybody been doing 
to-day ?” asked her grandfather. 

“ She left her sun-bonnet on a pole, and the 
cows maybe would have eaten it, but a boy 
brought it to Aunt Eunice. I never shall 
forget it any more,” she gravely confessed. 

‘‘And where were you when not in the 
bonnet?” put in her aunt, not Laving 
thought to ask before. 

Yolande hesitated ; then she related her 
experiences in a quaintly sober way : “ I 
went to visit the man that lives in the big 
house with hollyhocks down the back gar- 
den — No, I went to see the house, and 
he was in 'it.” 

“He? who?” interrupted Eunice, startled 
out of her usual calmness. 


DR. GRANTLF.Y^S NEIGHBORS. 193 

‘‘ The bottle-man — his room is all over 
bottles. He was not very well and glad to 
see me. I don’t like him, and he never 
wishes anybody’s children, nor me either, 
to come again.” 

While Eunice was gasping in a sort of 
dumb dismay, the deacon by a question or 
two more drew out the whole story. 

‘‘ He said I could go away, and I did go ; 
and I wanted his blue flowers, but I did not 
ask him for any ; he was too unrespectful. 
I took him in some pretty ‘ everybody’s flow- 
ers ’ from my fleld, but I brought them out ; 
he did not look as if he wanted any.” 

The deacon stirred uneasily. Eunice rose 
up suddenly and shot into the house, not ap- 
pearing again that evening. 

“ What makes you so still, grandpa?” ask- 
ed Yolande, coming after a while to climb on 
his knee. ‘‘ Why, it sprinkles!” 

He did not tell her it was a tear-drop that 
had fallen on her chubby hand. He said 
softly, I will teach you a verse, dearie, and 
you’ll remember it for grandpa’s sake as long 
as you live, even if you live until your hairs 
are as white as his. Say it after me now.” 

13 


194 


DR. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


So, under the quiet stars, while the crick- 
ets made melancholy music, the old man, re- 
membering his lost boy, repeated with Benja- 
min’s child, Love ye your enemies, and do 
good, . . . and ye shall be the children of 
the Highest: for he is kind to the unthank- 
ful and to the evil.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


“Alas! what a life is this, where tribulation and miseries 
are never wanting, where all is full of snares and enemies I” 

VES, I do suppose it might freshen me 

J- up if I were to take a bit of a play- 
spell. Yolande and I might as well go to 
Warrenton with you to-morrow and have 
done with it.” 

‘‘I say so too; it is kind of lonesome pot- 
tering around a big town all day,” returned 
the deacon, pushing back his dinner-plate, 
and adding, as he moved toward the cool 
piazza for his after-dinner nap, “ feel 
safer if you were along with your sharp 
eyes, daughter, for IVe got to draw out 
every cent of our fifteen hundred dollars, 
and I don’t carry such a sum in my pocket 
very often. I never did more than two or 
three times in my life, all told.” 

“Well, I warrant you won’t lose it if I 
am near by,” laughed Eunice, rather excited 

195 


196 DR. GRANTLF.Y^S NEIGHBORS. 

at thought of taking a ride of sixty miles 
by rail. She briskly cleared away the 
dishes, and then put the house in as neat 
order as if she expected to be gone six 
months instead of a day. She was in such 
excellent spirits that Yolande dared to tease 
her for a new doll, and was promised one. 
As Eunice worked that afternoon she made 
many cheerful calculations. At last the 
farm was to be their own,. for twelve hun- 
dred dollars paid to Judge Balcom would 
free them from debt ; then there would be 
enough left to buy several needed farm-im- 
plements. Yes, and Eunice could soon re- 
joice in such a fall house-cleaning ’’ as had 
not for a long time delighted her soul. The 
sitting-room should be newly papered with 
light gray — or no, perhaps with a delicate 
buff — paper, and she could afford a chintz 
cover for the lounge and the big rocking- 
chair. Who knows but she would go so 
far as to buy a new student’s lamp? The 
deacon would enjoy reading his weekly re- 
ligious paper by its soft light. Yolande 
really must have several new dresses; she 
brought only very shabby ones when she 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 197 

carue, and Eunice had made her none since 
that were pretty. A bright crimson merino 
would make her gay as a tropical bird, and 
Eunice liked to see young things bright and 
merry, for all her own garb and manner 
seemed so severe. She never took Yolande 
in her arms and kissed her, never played 
with her or held long and lively conversa- 
tions with her; but already Yolande knew 
that there were never ‘‘ doughnuts fried 
without a dough man being fashioned for 
her, never a pie made but she had a “ turn- 
over.” Her sticky little biscuits, cut out with 
a thimble, were allowed to burn on Eunice^s 
clean stove, and almost nothing that gave 
her harmless pleasure was denied her by 
this aunt of few words. What wonder that 
she was happy in her new home! 

Next morning Eunice got an early break- 
fast, and then all made ready for their trip. 
It was a perfect August day. A thunder- 
storm had cleared the air, every leaf was 
vivid green, and light clouds drifted over a 
radiant sky blue as in June. The deacon, 
while he cared for the animals’ comfort dur- 
ing his absence, sang, Sweet fields arrayed 


198 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


in living green/’ and Eunice answered Yo- 
lande’s questions almost laughingly, she felt 
so light-hearted : 

‘‘Yes, the doll shall have blue eyes, and 
open and shut them. Now, tell me, child, 
will you eat seed-cakes or ginger-snaps or 
sponge-cake? I want to put you up a 
lunch ; you may be hungry before dinner- 
time.” 

“ ’P(97i^-cake, ’poTi^-cake !” cried Yolande ; 
“ and here comes Mr. Potter !” 

Uncle Zeb was to drive over to the station 
with the Hopkinses, and there attend to a 
little business of his own. He stopped at 
the gate and sang out, “ All aboard !” The 
deacon clambered into a seat after swinging 
the child up, and they waited a moment for 
Eunice to lock the door and hide the key 
under the doorstep. 

“ How sweet the air is !” said Uncle Zeb ; 
“ it’s a pleasure jest to breathe on such a day.” 

“ Yes,” returned the deacon, letting his 
eyes wander over the pleasant old homestead, 
over the fertile fields, the broad pasture- 
lands, and thinking, 

“ I am content now if I go hence any 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 199 

time to a better country. Eunice and Yo- 
lande have a home secured. Eunice is get- 
ting along — not old yet, to be sure, but of 
an age to want to feel settled — and poverty 
has come close enough to my Benjamin’s 
baby in the past.” 

Eunice was ready at last — in her Sunday 
black cashmere, and wearing her straw bon- 
net with one remarkable pink flower on it, 
which fascinated Yolande, it was so unlike 
anything that ever grew. Eunice talked 
more than usual to Mr. Potter, asking ad- 
vice about their contemplated purchases for 
the farm, and she did not notice that Uncle 
Zeb was for him very quiet. Once or twice 
he opened his lips as if to make some im- 
portant communication ; then he closed them 
again. He saw the whole party safely on 
board the train, and as the cars steamed 
away from the little station he muttered, 

‘‘Mebbe Pd oughter told ’em, but what 
was the use of settin’ their nerves all a-quiv- 
erin’ two hours afore it would b^necessary ? 
Anywise, I hope there hain’t nothin’ in it.” 

“ What do you say, Potter ?” asked the 
ticket-agent, who stood near. 


200 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


Uncle Zeb replied soberly, 

“ Why, you see, the old deacon has got 
some money — I don’t know ’zactly how much 
— in the Warrenton bank. He’s been a long 
time scratchin’ it together to pay off a debt 
on that farm of his’n. He’s worked like a 
man of forty instead of one nigh seventy, 
and he’s gone to-day to draw it all out. I 
wish to gracious he’d ha’ done it sooner, for 
there’s a rumor — I do hope ’tain’t nothin’ 
but a lie out o’ hull cloth — that Elderedge, 
the president of the Warrenton bank, com- 
mitted suicide last night on account of some 
sudden shock that crazed him : he’s been in 
poor health. Nobody knows anythin’ more, 
even if that is true, but folks are guessin’ 
no end of things to pay ; or, rather, they 
are sayin’, ‘ What if there should be noth- 
in^ to pay to them as have put their funds 
there?’ ” 

“ Who else has money there ?” 

“No one from the Corners, that I know 
of. Judge Balcom used to have consider- 
able in it, but I heerd him say a while ago 
he did business with the Union Bank now- 
a-days.” 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 201 

Well, I hope old Hopkins won’t lose a 
dollar ; he’s as good as gold, and at his age 
a big loss would be tough.” 

‘‘ Tough wouldn’t be no name for it,” re- 
plied Uncle Zeb, preparing to turn his face 
homeward. 

The deacon and his daughter so seldom 
traveled that everything pertaining to their 
brief trip was to them of fresh interest and 
entertainment. Eunice studied the faces, 
dresses and manners of the passengers with 
the naive curiosity of one who knows very 
few people, and has long ago observed every- 
thing noticeable about those familiar few. 
The deacon adjusted his spectacles and 
read sedately a very poor poem handed him 
by a one-legged peddler ; then Yolande gave 
the peddler a few pennies and kept the dea- 
con busy until the cars ran into the Warren- 
ton station. Eunice washed Yolande’s face 
in the little waiting-room, and drew a whisk 
brush from her pocket and dusted off the 
deacon’s coat, before she allowed them to 
consider what was to be done first. The 
bank was about a mile from the station, 
and as the streets between were the best 


202 DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

and liveliest of the town, it was finally de- 
cided that they should walk leisurely along, 
seeing the sights, until the bank was reach- 
ed ; their business there transacted, they 
would have dinner, do the proposed shop- 
ping, and then take the train for home. 
They enjoyed the sights and sounds of the 
busy thoroughfare, stopping at almost every 
bazaar, ‘‘ dollar store ” or tempting window. 
Eunice had a feminine interest in novelties, 
and so had the deacon, as to that matter. 
They came once to a full stop before a beau- 
tiful assortment of china dishes marked down 
to a very low figure. 

“ Why, father,” said Eunice, I didn’t sup- 
pose a body could get such cups and saucers 
for any price like that. Ain’t they pretty ?” 

Her unusual enthusiasm was contagious. 

That they be,” rejoined the deacon heart- 
ily. ‘^And now see here, sis! You were 
saying you must have Mr. Halsay and some 
of the neighbors to tea soon : let’s just treat 
ourselves to half a dozen o’ them decorated 
cups and sassers. You could mix ’em in 
with those ma and I went to housekeepin’ 
with half a hundred years ago this spring.” 


1)B. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 203 

“ IVe as good a mind to do it as ever I 
had to eat/’ was Eunice’s emphatic declara- 
tion ; but don’t let’s be rash. We are com- 
ing back this way, and I’ll be deciding as we 
go. — Come, Yolande ; the doll can wait too ; 
you don’t want to be tugging it around with- 
out any clothes on.” 

“Oh no,” assented Yolande, shocked at 
the mere thought of such impropriety; and 
they went on. Curious passers stared at the 
tall spinster in her country attire, and at 
the lovely child running by the gentle old 
man; but the father and daughter had no 
thought that they were not abundantly bless- 
ed with all good gifts. 

“Well, this is the end of Main Street; 
now it runs into Temple Lane, and from 
Temple Lane we turn right into the street 
where the bank is,” said the deacon. “I 
declare, it’s pretty warm walking ; let’s stop 
under this elm.” 

Eunice stayed her steps ; Yolande put her 
face close to a wire fence to admire a neat 
lawn with a pattering fountain. The old 
man wiped the glistening beads of perspi- 
ration off his forehead, pushed back his 


204 DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

white hair, and, holding his broad-brimmed 
hat, let the soft breeze cool his face. He 
looked at the elm tree swaying, then at one 
great bank of cloud above the town-hall, 
and then he said simply, 

‘‘ I suppose fifteen hundred dollars would 
not seem much to lots of merchants and 
bankers out there in Main Street, but it 
means a sight of days’ work to us, don’t 
it, Eunice? — ploughing and sowing and 
reaping for me, and for you no end of 
woman’s work.” 

Yes, I would not want to work over 
again all the butter I’ve churned, for one 
thing. But we’d better be moving on, 
father.” 

When they turned out of the quiet street 
just traversed they joined at once a crowd 
which seemed exceedingly large, even for a 
city thoroughfare. 

“ There must be a mass-meeting or a fire,” 
exclaimed Eunice, “ for they are all going 
one way ; and see how excited they are 
ahead there !” 

Yes, but look out for the child, Eunice, 
or she will get pushed down.” 



“There is a run on the Bank.” 


Page 205 











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DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 205 

“ Keep close to me. — I wonder if there 
can be a strike f Something unusual is the 
matter,” she returned, seizing Yolande’s 
hand, and at the same time asking an anx- 
ious-faced woman near by the cause of the 
commotion. 

Why, don’t you know ?” the woman 
answered. ‘‘There is a run on the bank. 
Last night Elderedge, the president, was 
found dead in his private office; he had 
shot himself through the head. Something 
is wrong, and everybody is drawing out 
money. I’ve fought my way since the doors 
opened this morning, and there’s hundreds 
ahead of me. I’m a widow, and every cent 
my husband left me is under that roof.” 

Eunice turned, staring blankly at the old 
man, who had not heard the woman’s words, 
so careful was he of the little one, who was 
being jostled here and there. Did this 
mean — What could it mean ? She felt 
at once the common impulse to push, to 
elbow, to make more rapid progress in the 
throng. She was not near the bank, but 
she could see that the steps up to its en- 
trance were packed with excited men and 


20G dr. urantley^s neighbors. 

women. Suddenly there was loud shouting 
among them, with groans and, lower down, 
hisses. Policemen began more vigorously 
to force back the tide; then, far off on the 
street as she was, Eunice saw that the great 
iron doors of the bank were being jammed 
together, shut in the face of the multitude. 
On every side the tidings came, ominous 
words, meeting with loud lamentations from 
all hearers: ‘‘Suspended payment” — “Dead 
broke.” 

“ Elderedge trusted Grayson, and Gray- 
son has been speculating on the grandest 
scale with the bank funds. Elderedge has 
been getting old and credulous,” said one; 
and another went on : “ Yes, and when he 
found Grayson had absconded, with nobody 
knows how much money, he could not stand 
what he knew was coming, and so he shot 
himself dead.” 

“ The bank has been mismanaged for 
months past. I was warned in time,” put 
in the only calm man to be seen in the 
crowd. 

Eunice heard it all as in a dream. She 
knew it was penetrating her father’s duller 


1)R. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


207 


ears, for his face was blanching ; his eyes 
were fixed and his under jaw dropped. He 
let a half-distracted Irish woman thrust him 
this way and that, while he himself made no 
further effort to get on. 

“Why have they stopped now?” asked 
Eunice of the calm man, who was nearest 
her. She did not know her own voice, it 
was so strange and hollow. 

“ Because they have no more money to 
pay out, madam. I doubt if any man, wo- 
man or child gets a cent on a dollar of all 
the money put in that bank.” 

“Do you know anything about it?” 

“ I know Elderedge never killed himself 
for a little fizzle ; and as for Grayson, why 
it is all out in the Morning Chronicle how 
he has been throwing money to the dogs 
with his two country-seats, his yacht, his 
family in Europe half the time. Why, for 
every dollar of his own, I presume he has 
spent a thousand of — yours perhaps?” 

Eunice had just dignity enough left to 
retreat, with a vague thought that their loss 
was not a stranger’s affair. 

Their loss! Could it be possible that 


208 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


they had no fifteen hundred dollars? Be- 
cause somebody was dead and some one else 
had proved a scoundrel were they to have 
no profit of their long years of toil? As 
she struggled mentally to grasp the full 
import of the facts just learned, the crowd, 
the time, the place, were forgotten. Noth- 
ing impressed her but a sudden vivid fancy 
of her white-haired old father standing be- 
fore Judge Balcom empty-handed and say- 
ing, I can pay nothing ! it is all gone r 

Yolande at that moment gave a sharp 
cry of pain, and, tugging at the deacon’s 
coat, wailed, 

Somebody stepped on my foot. Oh 
dear ! it hurts me so !” 

Eunice saw him look down in a pitiful, 
stupefied way, as if he did not comprehend 
more than that they suffered together — not 
understanding what pain had come to them 
separately. 

“ Come, father, let us get out of the crowd ; 
make your way after me,'' said Eunice, lift- 
ing Yolande in her arms and drawing the 
old man after her as rapidly as possible. To 
break off from the multitude and to strike 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 209 

into a side-street again was not a very diffi- 
cult task, but as soon as it was accomplished 
the deacon went only a few paces, and then 
seated himself on the stone steps of a private 
mansion. 

‘‘ Stop, Eunice,” he exclaimed hoarsely, 
‘‘ and let us understand it. Do you make 
out that we can’t have our money to-day ?” 

“ Yes,” she answered, and was about to 
add, “ maybe we never will have it,” when 
she saw how he was trembling. “ There is 
a panic, and nobody knows anything defi- 
nitely. We had better go home, and by 
to-morrow every one will know the truth.” 

She seated herself by him, mechanically 
rubbing Yolande’s foot. The noon sunshine 
smote them hotly, but only the child per- 
ceived it or thought it made any difference. 
Eunice could think of nothing to say; she 
apprehended the worst, so nothing hopeful 
occurred to her. 

“ Yes, daughter, we must get home ; I can 
think it out better there. I seem lost,” the 
deacon faltered. 

“ But you must have a cup of tea ; it is 
dinner-time.” 


14 


210 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


“ No, no, not yet. I could at home, per- 
haps — could eat and pray and not feel so — 
so bewildered.’’ 

You must not go home without the dolly. 
Aunt Eunice ; you promised protested Yo- 
lande, amazed to hear of going back so soon. 

Long afterward Eunice wondered that she 
could have forced herself to leave everything 
concerning the money unsaid and go on so 
calmly. She led the way to a street-car, and 
they rode to the station. She found a quiet 
corner there, and, bringing the old man tea, 
she stood over him while he drank it, and 
then said, 

‘‘ You sit here, father, until I get back — 
don’t stir ; of course I must do for the cliild 
what I promised.” 

“And — Eunice,” he said, with a pathetic 
effort to be brave, “there were other er- 
rands, you know — the tea-set ; or will that 
cost — can’t we now — ” 

“ I will see to everything. I’ll do all 
that is to be done, and — and take care of 
you. I’m strong, and quite young yet.” 

Eunice failed in her attempt to smile, but 
her father understood her and murmured, 


DR. ORANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 211 

“ Yes, you are a blessing to the old 
father/’ 

Yolande pulled her aunt along again 
through the crowded streets. They passed 
the pretty tea-cups, the shops that held the 
various objects which Eunice had expected 
to purchase, but she gave nothing her atten- 
tion until they reached the toy-shop, where 
she bought exactly such a waxen baby as 
Yolande had been promised, and then they 
returned to the railroad-station. They had 
to wait a few moments for a train that would 
stop at Conesus Corners. Yolande nestled 
close to her grandfather, and sat quiet. She 
was awed by his manner. Eunice, her hands 
folded in her lap, her tall form bolt upright, 
seemed calmly watching the people gathering 
in the waiting-room. A fierce tumult was 
raging under the impassive exterior. Poor 
Eunice ! Never would it be true of her, as it 
certainly was of the deacon, that she was 
being ‘‘ led along a way of peace to a land 
of everlasting light.” She went forward, 
fighting doubt, encountering forces of evil, 
throughout her pilgrimage. 

Is God good? was the black thought, the 


212 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

angry question, of this hour. It came to her 
as to thousands before her. If he is kind, 
is loving, if he does care for us, why this 
blow? The poor father is getting old and 
feeble ; he was so happy to feel the burden 
slip gently off! Must it come back on the 
bent shoulders with crushing, sickening 
weight? must he stagger on under it for 
ever? 

And she herself! Sorrow had taken the 
sweetness out of her early life, but she had 
strengthened herself to labor bravely — for 
what? Again she must suffer for others’ 
evil deeds. The old Bible told how God’s 
love and mercy passed from one generation 
to another. Its promises were multiplied for 
the children of the righteous. Now, had not 
this gray-haired father’s life been like a beau- 
tiful psalm of praise? Yet where was the 
mercy in poor wayward Ben’s career? and 
was it infinite love that was thus continually 
embittering all life to her ? 

An elegantly-dressed woman waiting for 
a train was pacing back and forth before 
Eunice. Once in passing she laughed, re- 
marking to a companion. 


I)B. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 213 

“ Yes, our summer has been gayer than 
our winter, if that could be possible. We 
have done nothing but enjoy ourselves.” 

“ By what rule of justice did God let you 
enjoy so much, and then allow this to come 
on him ?” groaned Eunice inwardly, not 
trusting herself to glance again at the old 
man, whose head was bent — in sleep the 
bystanders fancied. 

Like a whisper from some good angel came 
the words to the tempted, unhappy woman, 
“ Like as a father pitieth his children ” (that 
is, just as her father would pity his own Ben), 
‘‘ so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” She 
must fall back on the old, old trust, and go 
by faith through darkness again for a time. 

The train came thundering into the sta- 
tion ; everybody hastened to get on with 
boxes, bags or babies. Eunice seized Yo- 
lande and aroused her father, who whis- 
pered, 

‘‘ From a long life behind a body surely 
he may get understanding for the future; 
and I do know, Eunice, that I love God, 
and that before this ‘ all things have worked 
together for good ’ to me.” 


214 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

“ Be careful where you step/^ was Eunice’s 
grim retort. 

Uncle Zeb was at the Conesus station — a 
fact at which the Hopkinses did not think to 
wonder, although they had given him no 
reason to expect them back so early in the 
afternoon. He gave a few keen glances into 
their sober faces, and drew his own conclu- 
sions, but asked no questions. He talked to 
his horses after a fashion of his own as he 
drove past the corn-fields down the pleasant 
shaded road. By and by he began to sing 
in a cheery, deep voice, that had unusual 
feeling in its tones, 

“ There’s a voice for ever sounding 
In the weary pilgrim’s ear — 

Voice of tenderest compassion, 

Framing sweetest words of cheer : 

‘ Cast on me your heavy burdens, 

Cast on me your load of care ; 

I invite you, I entreat you : 

All your burdens I will bear.’ ” 

At the gate Eunice was out over the wheel 
and into the house before Mr. Potter could 
get himself to the ground. Not being urged 
to enter, he only waited for the deacon to 
alight, then wringing his hand, he said. 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 215 

“ I suspicion the whole thing, brother, 
but don’t give up under it. I’ll be around 
when you’ve had a chance to get your bear- 
in’s and we’ll talk it over in a neighborly 
way. I only wish I had a pile of my own 
in some other bank, and this would be the 
time I’d draw it out to lend.” 

The deacon pressed his hand and tried to 
smile, but the very attempt made Uncle 
Zeb’s eyes misty, and he drove away rap- 
idly. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


“Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or 
strength each one hath. For occasions do not make a man 
frail, but they show what he is.” 

ll/TY dear brother Potter, you are not 
-tlA practical. Your sympathy for Dea- 
con Hopkins reflects credit on your kind 
heart : I also am moved to — to — ah ! lament 
over this untoward circumstance, which 
must result in the loss of his farm.’’ 

It was Judge Balcom who spoke thus as 
be sat before Uncle Zeb one morning. They 
were in the judge’s office, and had been talk- 
ing earnestly for an hour or more. 

I’d be ‘ practical ’ to the tune of twelve 
hundred dollars, to be lent to the deacon, 
if I could raise it, judge; but it is about as 
wife says — we’ve always fed our critters, paid 
our debts and been tolerably thankful, but 
when the years swing ’round we hain’t got 
a dime laid away in a stocking-leg. Now, 
216 


DK GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


217 


judge, it must be different with you. Can’t 
you make a shift and not sell out the dea- 
con this time?” 

‘‘ I have been exceedingly lenient, Mr. 
Potter, in all time past. I must have ready 
money, for my son, who is soon to sail, has 
required a great deal. To be sure, I am not 
absolutely without other resources, but, in 
point of fact, I am so just now. My money 
is tied up in stocks, in Western land, etc. I 
consider that I do Deacon Hopkins a service 
in putting him, so to speak, on the retired 
list ; he is too old a man to labor. Eunice 
must settle him in some simple way of liv- 
ing, and support him in ease. She can do 
any kind of woman’s work, such as tailor- 
ing or dressmaking, or she can go out nurs- 
ing.” 

“ It is like death to ’em both to see the 
homestead going,” murmured Mr. Potter. 

‘‘Providence might not have deprived 
them of it had the old man been clearer- 
headed and more business-like in other 
days,” returned the judge. “As for Eu- 
nice, the Lord doubtless knows she needs 
it ; she appears to me stiff-necked. She 


218 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

must accept it as needed discipline. To 
some is given prosperity, to others poverty. 
You must consult a higher Power than my 
weak judgment if you question the wisdom 
of such a dispensation.’’ 

‘‘ I suppose now ’tis easier to be resigned 
in your position than in the deacon’s, isn’t 
it?’’ 

The judge gazed at Uncle Zeb in reproach- 
ful dignity as he quoted from his favorite 
book of Ecclesiastes : ‘‘ ‘ Every man also to 
whom God hath given riches and wealth, 
and hath given him power to eat thereof 
and to take his portion, and to rejoice in 
his labor; this also is the gift of GodJ I 
regret, Mr. Potter, as deeply perhaps as you 
may, that the Lord has not seen fit to pros- 
per Deacon Hopkins.” 

‘‘And I was not reflectin’ on the Lord; 
I was only a-turnin’ on it over in my own 
mind, judge, if there wasn’t a prime chance 
for us to carry out the New-Testament in- 
junction to ‘ bear one another’s burdens.’ ” 

“ Certainly we must be very diligent in 
carrying all the consolations of the gospel 
to those who are heav3^-laden.” 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 219 

Uncle Zeb forgot himself, and in sudden 
heat exclaimed, 

“Oh, land of Goshen! Judge, that day 
the black colt run away with you, dashed 
yoti overboard, and left a thundering big 
butter-tub resting on your stomach, I mind 
me well the very fust thing you wanted of 
me as a neighbor was to roll it off and help 
you onto your pegs again.” 

The judge did not seem to see any rele- 
vancy in this remark. He merely reflected 
that Mr. Potter in his conversation made 
strange confusion with things carnal and 
things spiritual. At the same time, he un- 
rolled a quantity of legal documents and 
prepared for his morning’s work. 

Uncle Zeb arose, and, searching under 
the chair for his old straw hat, said ner- 
vously, 

“Then you are resolved to sell the Hop- 
kins farm unless the deacon can raise the 
money to pay? He says he can’t noways 
do it.” 

“As matters stand,” returned the judge 
calmly, “I am forced to be more just than 
generous. The deacon ought to have in- 


220 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS, 

formed himself before it was too late in re- 
gard to the First Bank. I removed my 
money from there a twelvemonth ago. As 
Solomon says, ‘A prudent man foreseeth the 
evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass 
on and are punished.’ Good-morning, Mr. 
Potter.” 

If Uncle Zeb had not had infinitely more 
faith in Christ than he had in Christians, 
he would have gone away with the idea 
that the judge was an old Pharisee — noth- 
ing more, nothing less. As it was, he only 
moved slowly down the street, whistling a 
melancholy tune, until he came opposite 
Dr. Grantley’s office. Seeing the door open, 
he acted on the impulse to go in. 

‘‘ Walk right in, old fellow,” cried the doc- 
tor, who sat at his table putting up powders. 
If Mr. Potter would come, he should not 
fancy Dr. Grantley ever considered his vis- 
its in any serious light. “ Make yourself at 
home — take a pill or blister or a plaster, as 
you please. Or did you come for doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness ?” 

Why, now. Dr. Grantley, if I had come 


DR. QBANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


221 


for this ^ere last, ^twouldn’t avail much,” re- 
turned Mr. Potter, dropping into a big leath- 
ern chair as he added in a pleasant drawl, 
“ for your very words show that * from a child 
thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which 
are able to make thee wise unto salvation^ 
through faith which is in Christ Jesus;" 
and what the word of the Lord has not 
done, how can old Zeb Potter hope to ac- 
complish ?” 

The doctor folded powders a while silent- 
ly; then he said carelessly, pushing them 
aside, ‘‘So that pious old Presbyterian fig- 
ure-head has lost his bottom dollar? If 
he was a sinner it would be a pity, but of 
course he don’t count anything a treasure 
that is not laid up in heaven, so it doesn’t 
matter.” 

Mr. Potter was not stirred to the least in- 
dignation. Perhaps he knew that was ex- 
pected of him, for he only returned, 

“ No, it does not take anything good out 
of his heart, but it is like a big stone drop- 
ped on his feet ; poor tired old feet they be 
too, that have followed the Lord over many 
a thorny road.” 


222 DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

There was a harder rasp in the doctor’s 
voice as he retorted, 

‘‘ But if he believes what he professes to 
hold true, he ought to be thankful for his 
troubles. Come now. Uncle Zeb, own up 
if there is not real nonsense and trickery 
in the way you pious fellows salve over a 
Christian’s tribulations, and lay down the 
law when a reprobate gets into hot water. 
I believe that loss and sorrow and all that 
come like lightning and measles — ‘ hit or 
miss, amen !’ as the Methodist darkey said. 
But you goody chaps roll up the whites of 
your eyes over an affair like this of the dea- 
con’s and say, ‘Whom the Lord loveth he 
chasteneth.’ If I had lost that money you 
never would have clapped that text on to 
me. Oh no ; then it would be — let me see 
— ‘ Evil shall hunt the violent man to over- 
throw him,’ or something of that sort. Now, 
Uncle Zeb, what makes a catastrophe like 
this a blessing in disguise to Deacon Hop- 
kins? And if it is one, why was not the 
loss of my black mare Nancy one too ? The 
express-train, you know, hit my sulky last 
year, knocked me head over heels, and kill- 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 223 

ed poor Nance as dead as a door-nail. I 
never heard a mortal say it would be ‘ sanc- 
tified to me/ but they all whine in this way 
about the deacon’s lost money. Money is 
as material a thing as horseflesh. What is 
the difference in the two cases?” 

“ I don’t exactly see what you are tryin’ 
to make out. The pint ain’t as to the dif- 
ference betwixt and between one sort of 
trouble and another. It is jest here. What 
has your trouble done for you, and what has 
it done for the other man ? There is where 
the blessing comes in. Whenever you talk- 
ed about that accident that killed your 
mare you used to swear until the very air 
smelt of brimstone; I’ve heerd you do it. 

I didn’t claim to be very scrup’lous myself 
about those days, but I did wonder any man 
could let out such a temper and be so awful 
profane over something nobody but himself 
was to blame for, after all. What it did for - 
you was to stir up all the ugly in you and 
let it ferment and sizzle. But what trouble 
has done afore this for the deacon we all on 
us have seen. He lost a boy, the very light 
of his eyes; mebbe he wasn’t so proud of 


224 DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

him as Judge Balconi is of Herbert, but he 
loved him every whit as well. Ben was led 
into wicked ways and cut off very sudden, 
but what did his loss do for his father? 
Why, there ain’t a young feller at the Cor- 
ners that the tender-hearted old man isn’t 
tryin’ to help along the good way, and the 
wilder they be the more his tremblin’ old 
fingers are reachin’ out arter them.” 

The doctor fumbled in his coat for a pocket- 
case, laid the powders in it, then, leaning back 
in his chair, said in a tone somewhat softer. 

It is of course hard for any man to lose 
all his earnings, but I presume Judge Bal- 
com will be very easy with him.” 

Now, the doctor did not presume ” any- 
thing of the kind, but Uncle Zeb, being in 
such a sympathetic mood himself, fell into 
the snare set for him, and sighed, 

‘‘I fear he won’t; he says he must sell 
• him out.” 

“ What ! you don’t mean Balcom will do 
that to an old man who has been his neigh- 
bor for almost half a century ? Why, Un- 
cle Zeb, you forget that the judge is a Chris- 
tian! I would not do that.” 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 225 

Mr. Potter’s face lengthened ; he wiped 
his forehead with his red silk handkerchief, 
and soberly studied a skull that adorned one 
of the doctor’s bookcases. 

“Now, you see. Uncle Zeb, that all the 
judge’s pious pretensions are pure hypocrisy. 
He declares that he is a Christian, he de- 
clares that Christians love their neighbors 
as themselves : what ails the Christian of 
him in this particular little affair?” 

“ What is the ‘ Christian ’ of anybody, 
doctor ?” 

“ I give it up.” 

“ Well, I don’t know much about theology, 
but I reckon it is the amount of God’s love 
we have in our hearts, and the power it has 
working out in our wheat-threshing, produce- 
selling or powder-dosing, as the case may 
be.” 

“ Then, I take it, there can’t be very much 
pressure to the square inch in Balcom’s case, 
or have you some other theory to fit him ?” 

“What we all lack is enough love,” re- 
turned Uncle Zeb soberly, “ and that love is 
just another name for the Holy Spirit. It 
comes to us from above, and we don’t create 


15 


226 VR. ORANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

it for ourselves from within. A man with- 
out it is, as I heerd somebody say once, like 
cold iron ; but let heat get into that iron, let 
love get into the man, and the blackness, the 
coldness, the hardness, will go. There is 
many a Christian that is like warm iron, 
just warm enough to show that heat has 
touched it ; but the iron needs much more 
before it will bend or melt or give out 
a glow to any but the person or thing it 
touches.’’ 

“ There is no opportunity for a lay-preach- 
er to show his ability among the orderly 
Presbyterians, Uncle Zeb ; you ought to 
have joined the Methodists, and then your 
light would not have been put under a 
bushel. You ought to apply yourself to 
warming up the judge gradually — give him 
the benefit of daily contact with yourself. 
You waste your energies on me, I fear.” 

“ I am going now,” said Mr. Potter, ris- 
ing with a certain quiet dignity that im- 
pressed the doctor and made him aware of 
his own rudeness. 

“ Don’t go for anything I have said ; I 
did not mean, ‘ Give me any less of Potter,’ 


DE. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 227 

but, * Give the judge more.’ You and I 
are old friends; I let you say what you 
please to me, and I take a like liberty with 
you.” 

“Yes, yes, doctor. You hain’t any per- 
sonal influence with the judge, have you? 
you couldn’t talk him around ?” 

“No; the judge is nothing to me, nor the 
deacon either.” 

“ Why, his Ben and you used to be great 
cronies ; I heerd his father say in old times 
that you could do ’most anything with Ben. 
But I must poke along ; I promised mother 
to put her up a new clothes-line. Now har- 
vesting is about over, I ain’t so driv’ with 
farm-work. Good-morning.” 

Uncle Zeb, as he shut the Grantley gate, 
looked sorrowfully toward the Hopkins home- 
stead and sighed : 

“ ’Tain’t no use. Saint and sinner, — they 
^ all seem to quote Scripter to suit their pur- 
pose, and they clutch their pocket-books with 
the same tight grip. The Lord, and not Zeb 
Potter, will have to soften their hearts if any- 
thing of that natur’ is to take place.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


“ If thy heart were sincere and upright, then every creature 
would be unto thee a living mirror and a book of holy doctrine.” 

M rs. TIBBITS’S life about this time was 
a series of surprises at that which to an 
outsider would have seemed a very trivial 
matter. But straws did indeed show that 
there was a change in the current of affairs 
in Dr. Grantley’s household. The new as- 
pect of things began about the time that 
Helen’s lessons were well under way. She 
was so eager to learn, so quick to compre- 
hend, that it was pleasant for the doctor to 
teach her and to mark her rapid assimilation 
of knowledge. He began to recognize her 
individuality, to be interested in reading her 
tastes, peculiarities — in short, her distinctive 
traits of character ; and no sooner did he do 
this than he treated her more as he treated 
his patients — respectfully, if not ceremoni- 
ously. He sometimes spoke to her at the 
228 


DR. ORANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 229 

table, and if she asked him a question he 
answered her fully and civilly. At first, 
Helen, while in his presence, felt like one 
standing before a loaded cannon likely to be 
discharged at any moment, but soon a de- 
lightful sense of liberty was realized. One 
by one, she opened the rooms so long shut 
up and let in the sunshine ; nobody protest- 
ed. So, while Mrs. Tibbits trembled and 
prophesied some terrible outburst, Helen 
made the house more pleasant, almost home- 
like. There was for her a new and fascinat- 
ing excitement in seeing how far she might 
venture to act, to talk, to dress as other girls 
were accustomed to do in their own homes ; 
but, above all, it was interesting to find that 
behind his sarcasm and indifference the doc- 
tor was “ something like other men.’’ 

Occasionally, after her lessons were re- 
cited, Dr. Grantley would detain her for a 
while, asking what she heard at Sunday- 
school that was ‘‘new and startling,” idly 
questioning her about the books she had 
read or of her new acquaintances among 
the young girls, or what she thought of 
Mr. Halsay, whom he had never met. It 


230 DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

came to her one rainy day that this man was 
lonely — that after persistently shutting every 
one out of his home-life he was now reach- 
ing out after human sympathy. She mis- 
took, as warm-hearted, somewhat romantic 
girls often mistake, the state of another’s 
mind, but perhaps her interpretation of his 
thoughts and conduct was on the whole for- 
tunate. It softened her heart, and made her 
set to work to be more unselfish — to make 
some one outside herself happier. From that 
day when, looking back into his office, she 
saw him lean his head on his hand in a 
tired, melancholy attitude, she tried to treat 
him with more deference, to study his wishes 
and to carry them out in all details of house- 
hold or educational matters. That from 
almost hating him she had come to pitying 
him. Dr. Grantley never once imagined. 
He did not care how she regarded him ; 
what he was doing and allowing her to do 
was prompted by no motive save a vague 
wish to divert his own mind and to keep 
himself from regretting the past. The visit 
Yolande made him had shaken him to a 
degree he would have believed impossible. 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 231 

She had with her tiny hand opened a door 
through which trooped shadowy spectres of 
past sins. They had not gone out with her 
into the sunshine, but seemed for ever lurk- 
ing in his sombre room, awaiting his mo- 
ments of leisure to harass him. More than 
once he turned his horse’s head and drove 
a roundabout way to avoid meeting the 
white-haired old grandfather and the child 
dancing at his side. BenjamirCs child it 
always was to Dr. Grantley, as to the dea- 
con. The love he had borne the child’s 
mother was only a faint, sad memory com- 
pared with the remorse with which he re- 
called Ben’s blasted life. He said to him- 
self frequently that he wished he might 
never again hear the name of Hopkins, yet 
he kept himself informed of much that re- 
lated to the deacon, to Eunice and to little 
Yolande. 

Uncle Zeb Potter was the only unprofes- 
sional caller whom Dr. Grantley ever enter- 
tained. Perhaps it is too much to say that 
he did willingly play host when the old 
man deliberately strolled into his office for 
a call that was sure to result in some con- 


232 DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

versation of a personal nature; but Uncle 
Zeb came all the same, and the doctor could 
not be more sarcastic than the old man could 
be plain-spoken. With the rest of the com- 
munity the doctor felt himself at odds, and 
was never quite at ease among his townspeo- 
ple unless he dealt with them in their sea- 
sons of illness. The most respectable classes 
were made up of church-members and their 
families ; with these he had no sympathy. 
There were no free-thinkers ’’ at the Cor- 
ners, except those so low and openly vicious 
that the doctor would have scorned to have 
chosen them for associates. His profes- 
sion alone kept him from becoming a mis- 
anthrope without interest in any one but 
himself. That a human being was good or 
bad seemed never to concern him in the 
least, but that he was well or ill was a mat- 
ter of some importance in his opinion ; so 
whatever any one said of Dr. Grantley as 
a neighbor, all agreed that he was an ex- 
cellent physician. 

One afternoon in August the doctor, re- 
turning from a country drive, found on his 
slate a call to Maria Wells. He turned 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 233 

the slate over after reading its contents, and 
held it thoughtfully. He had not been called 
to see Maria for years. He well remembered 
the day when he went with a physician from 
the city to examine her case. It was in the 
first year of his practice, and he had done 
little more than accompany the older doctor, 
who had pronounced her doomed to lifelong 
invalidism. He had been sorry for the 
bright girl who would know the truth, and 
who was so shocked by it. He attended her 
a little while after that ; then her mother 
dismissed him rather coolly. He supposed 
at the time that they were poor and feared 
to run up a large bill. Later, when he 
learned of their employing another physi- 
cian, he thought they might have heard of 
some of his wild deeds and preferred a stead- 
ier man ; in this conjecture he was not de- 
ceived. For several years he had not known 
anything about Maria beyond the fact that, 
while she had not recovered her health, she 
had called in no other doctor. 

‘‘ She probably concluded that ‘ physicians 
were in vain,^ and it was wise for her to grin 
and bear it without any expense,’' he mut- 


234 DB. GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBOBS. 

tered to himself as he put on his hat again. 
‘‘ Or, more likely, she has grumbled and 
borne it, so that the pretty broken-backed 
girl of fifteen is a faded, cross and tedious 
old maid. Or, let me see : was it her back ? 
I have really forgotten now how she was 
injured.’’ 

He entered the cottage-gate, and, lifting 
the old brass knocker on the front-door, 
rapped loudly. A clear and pleasant voice 
called, 

‘‘ Gome in !” 

Maria’s room was always bright with fresh 
flowers and tasteful objects, making it cheery, 
but Maria herself was the sweetest sight that 
met the eye of the comer. Her fair face was 
still girlish at twenty-five, for suffering had 
only refined it, while in that peaceful retreat 
no passions or struggles, no impress of the 
hurry and worry of life outside, had left 
rough marks on her countenance. Only the 
great brown eyes told the story never whis- 
pered by the child-like, smiling mouth — that 
sometimes the stricken woman, remembering 
her youth and its vanished brightness, made 
to herself the sad lament, 


DB. GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBOBS. 


235 


“ My inner being 

Beasons and knows that all is for the best ; 

But, oh ! the unstilled yearning in my breast 
As my soul’s eyes turn ever backward, seeing 
The vanished self that evermore must be, 

This side of what we call eternity, 

Not quite the same.” 

On coming into her presence Dr. Grant- 
ley stood a moment as if bewildered, and 
Maria herself did not recognize him at once, 
he had grown so much older, graver and 
darker than the beardless young man she 
had formerly known ; but soon she exclaim- 
ed, with a smile of amusement, 

“ It is you. Dr. Grantley ! Will you 
please find yourself a seat? Mother has 
gone to one of the neighbor's, and left me 
to play housekeeper. We did not expect 
you so promptly, for your niece said you 
would not return from the country before 
dark." 

“ My niece ?" he echoed, a little confused 
by the unfamiliar words. 

“ I mean Helen ; perhaps she is not your 
niece, but your cousin ; I only know she is a 
Grantley and in your care." 

‘‘ Yes, she is a Grantley," returned the 


236 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

doctor, taking a seat as he added, “ I have 
not had much care of her, however; like 
Topsy, she has ‘ growed/ ’’ 

“ But now you are teaching her regularly, 
and she is so much happier than she was. 
You wonder how I know that? I guessed 
it in the few times I have seen her. I 
never saw any one so eager to learn more, 
to make more of herself. I think you are 
doing a wise, kind thing to help her to an 
education.” 

“ She is not very demonstrative ; you must 
have quickly found her out,” said the doctor, 
thinking not of Helen, but of Maria herself. 
How had she kept so fresh, so free from sick- 
room tones and doleful ways ? In a lighter 
mood than usual he said, smiling, “ Have 
you sent for me. Miss Wells, to confess that 
you have been making-believe ill all this 
time? If you have not, I cannot account 
for your looking so bright and well. One 
would think you had been enjoying your- 
self as a steady occupation.” 

“Well, I am not sure that I have not 
been doing just that,” she answered. 

“ You have had leisure to read, for one 


I)R. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


237 


thing/’ and the’ doctor scanned curiously 
the titles of the volumes on a shelf near 
him, “ and you have made your prison- 
house very bright and pretty.” 

“ Others have done that for me, and it 
does add to my happiness. It must be dread- 
ful to lie still day after day and see only bare 
walls and ugly articles. I found a little poem 
not long ago that might have been written 
for me. Shall I read it to you ?” 

Without waiting for an answer, she found 
it in a willow workbox close by her on the 
window-sill, and read it most musically : 

“This is the place that I love the best: 

A little brown house like a ground-bird’s nest, 

Hid among grasses and vines and trees, 

Summer retreat of the birds and the bees. 

“The tenderest light that ever was seen 
Lifts through the vine-made window-screen — 

Lifts and quivers and flits and falls 
On home-made carpets and gray-hung walls. 

“All through June the west wind free 
The breath of the clover brings to me; 

All through the languid July day 
I catch the scent of the new-mown hay. 

“The morning-glories and scarlet vine 
Over the doorway twist and twine; 

And every day, when the house is still, 

The humming-bird comes to the window-sill.” 


238 DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

“There is more of it, but you can see 
how one learns to make much of little sights 
and sounds that busy people cannot stop to 
find so pleasant.” 

“ It is all according to the law of com- 
pensation ; but did you always take so kind- 
ly to a life of confinement?” 

The doctor asked the question more to 
carry on conversation than from a desire to 
learn the truth. The answer was earnest, 
and impressed him : 

“ Do you remember the day Dr. Cradock 
told me I was incurable? If he had swung 
back the door of a vault without air or light 
and said, ‘ Go in there and stay until death,’ 
it seemed to me that would have been infi- 
nitely better; for, entering, I should have 
known my life could not be long, however 
terrible its gloom and deprivation. Now it 
seems to me quite different.” 

“ Yes, one gets used to everything. As 
the prisoner said, ‘My very chains and I 
grew friends,’ ” remarked the doctor. 

She looked at him as if she were won- 
dering if his words did describe her expe- 
rience ; then she said : 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


239 


“ It is like this : Once my father took me 
to a city. I had the most brilliant fancies 
of the pleasure I was to have there. Late 
one afternoon, while on the journey, he put 
me in a cold, dark station and left me wait- 
ing. I must stay until he came back, and 
it seemed to me he delayed his return ; but 
I was not at all unhappy. My father knew 
he must put me there, and I was on the way 
to something far better. It is so with me 
now.” 

“ Then you expect to get well ?” The 
doctor said it almost brutally. He knew 
well enough what she meant, but he was 
not going to let her indulge in any “ pious 
affectation.” She had read poetry to him, 
and he had allowed himself to make that 
poem into a mental picture. He was even 
now, as the western sunshine smote her dark 
hair and brightened her delicate face, liken- 
ing her to one of Murillo’s Marys, youthful 
yet mature, serene but suggesting sorrow. 

He was ashamed when she looked quick- 
ly out of the window to hide the tears that 
rushed into her eyes, while she answered 
him quietly. 


240 DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

‘‘ I expect to grow old within these four 
walls.” 

The gate shut with a clang, a quick step 
came up the walk outside the house, and a 
moment after Mrs. Wells appeared. She 
was a brisk, good-looking woman of middle 
age, and began to talk as soon as she per- 
ceived the doctor : 

“ Oh, you are here already ? Well, I 
hope you will make a thorough examina- 
tion of Maria’s case. 1 have just waked up 
to the fact that she has been very strangely 
affected for the past year. She is a great 
deal stronger, and yet she suffers more pain. 
She has sat up on her couch lately half an 
hour at a time. — Haven’t you, Maria?” 

Dr. Grantley turned to the daughter, but 
Mrs. Wells, once fairly under way, must say 
her say out : 

‘‘ We have not had a doctor in the house 
for five years, because there did not seem 
to be any use in calling one. Maria was 
always the same, and the last doctor told us 
just how she would probably go on ; but 
now she has taken a turn : either she is 
better or worse, and, for the life of me, I 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


241 


can’t tell wliich it is, and she don’t appear 
to care. When she gave up all hope I sup- 
pose she just let it go once for all. But I 
said to her this morning, ‘ Maria, it won’t 
do any hurt, certainly, to get Dr. Grantley’s 
opinion, if only to satisfy my curiosity as to 
this and that queer symptom that you never 
had before this year, to my knowledge : and 
I said, ‘ Mari—’ ” 

“And you sent for me, and here I am,” 
put in the doctor in his promptest tone. 
“ Let us look into the case at once.” 

He turned to the sick girl, stayed the tide 
of her mothers eloquence as much as was 
possible, and began a long and detailed ex- 
amination. 

As a physician he was interested in study- 
in 2: the case, but at the outset he had no idea 
that she was otherwise than incurable. Nev- 
ertheless, as he proceeded he experienced a 
succession of surprises. For a time he paid 
no attention to Mrs. Wells’s repeated “ What 
do you think, doctor?” — “Give us your 
opinion— do. Dr. Grantley.” He merely 
ignored her presence, and questioned care- 
fully her daughter. 

16 


242 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


At last he said, very coolly, 

‘‘ I am glad you sent for me. Miss Maria 
should not be unduly elated by a crumb of 
encouragement at this late day, so I may say 
candidly that I do not see why her case is 
hopeless. She could never be a strong wom- 
an, but she may yet be able to stand on her 
feet. A long course of treatment might have 
prevented this, but, having been let alone, 
Nature has worked out slowly some results 
not to have been expected, and, which, all 
things considered, are astonishing. A change 
has indeed been going on, and she is strong- 
er ; the pain I can easily account for. I 
want this case. — May I take you in charge, 
Miss Wells, for six months? I will not 
make you worse — I promise you that — and 
I may be able to help you.’’ 

Catching a look of hesitation, a mute 
question that passed from one woman to 
the other, he added frankly. 

The case is exceedingly interesting to 
me, and my charges will not be large.” 

Then, before he could be answered. Dr. 
Grantley, with the tact he knew how to ex- 
ercise when he had a motive thereto, be^an 


J)R. OEANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 243 

conversation on a new line, and soon rose 
to go. The evening shadows had come in 
so fast that he could not see Maria’s face, 
but her voice trembled and was very sweet 
when she bade him good-night. 

As he walked home he reflected : 

‘‘ They must be poor, but that girl would 
make a hovel refined with her presence. 
Pious too ! but she ought to be, poor thing ! 
If she can’t have anything of earth, who 
would wish to take away her pretty fancies 
of heaven? I never saw just such a child- 
like woman. It comes of her being shut up 
to prayer and poetry, I presume. If she 
had had strength enough to gad the town 
over every day, she would have talked gos- 
sip with as glib a tongue as the old lady. — 
Here, Tibbits!” he roared, having opened 
his own house-door, “ why, in the name of 
common sense, don’t you light this hall- 
lamp, and not leave me to graze my shins 
whenever I come in at night?” 

Mrs. Tibbits came quaking, and broke six 
matches in her haste to shed light on the 
doctor’s pathway. 

That same evening, after tea, Mr. Halsay 


244 


DR. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


called. Mrs. Tibbits ushered him into the 
sitting-room, where the doctor was reading 
a newspaper; then she retreated over the 
threshold as if she expected an immediate 
personal encounter between the two men. 
The minister introduced himself without 
manifesting the least terror, and when Hel- 
en came in soon after she interrupted a dis- 
cussion only warlike in that it related to the 
British army and some of its late exploits. 
The minister stayed half an hour, and during 
that time I)r. Grantley treated him as one 
gentleman should treat another. A patient 
in the office called him out of the room a 
little while before Mr. Halsay left the house, 
and then Helen talked with the minister of 
her studies, of Miss Eunice^s Bible-class, and 
of Maria Wells, on whom he had lately made 
a pastoral call. 

Mrs. Tibbits, too nervous to remain in the 
doctor’s presence, slipped, into the room *as 
the latter went to the office, and she was 
exceedingly sociable. She asked Mr. Hal- 
say no end of questions, and chatted on 
about church- matters in a way which he 
found amusing if not edifying: 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 245 

You won’t really see what Conesus Cor- 
ners folks can do when they set out to do 
something fine until cold weather comes ; 
then, if 1 do say it, they can’t be beat for 
getting up genteel entertainments that no- 
body can complain of, like reading-clubs, 
spelling-down bees and magic-lantern even- 
ings. Last winter Bell Haton got up some 
private tabloos in their parlors, though I 
heard Eunice Hopkins didn’t approve of 
them; I’m sure I don’t know why, for they 
was mostly scenes from the life of Moses — 
one of ’em something about his going to a 
fair and fetchin’ home a gross of green spec- 
tacles. Now, I never knew before there was 
such a thing in the Bible ; so, if it set young 
folks to studying the Scriptures, the Hop- 
kinses needn’t have been so particular, ’seems 
to me.” 

The minister caught the gleam in Helen’s 
eyes, giving her a glance that said, “ You tell 
her by and by ; I don’t want to mortify her,” 
then he rose to go. 

Dr. Grantley made no subsequent allusion 
to that call, and no one would have thought 
it of much importance but for Mrs. Tibbits. 


246 DR. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

Many times in the next six months she dis- 
coursed after this fashion : 

“You may say what you like, but the 
doctor has behaved ten times more like a 
gentleman since that night the minister call- 
ed on him. He ain’t so rough in his speech. 
Why, even his patients notice it. I was ask- 
ing Mrs. Wells how Maria was, and she, in 
telling me, happened to say they found the 
doctor so much more civilized than they ex- 
pected him to be. Not that she put it just 
that way, but that was the sura and substance 
of what she meant.” 

“ Nobody could be rude to Maria,” return- 
ed Helen ; adding, “ I don’t understand how 
a mere formal call could have such an effect. 
Mr. Halsay said nothing to the doctor about 
morals or manners ; but it is true that from 
about that time a change for the better has 
come over him. He is as near being polite 
sometimes as I can imagine him to be under 
the most favorable conditions.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


“ Grace ascribeth no good to herself, nor doth she arrogantly 
presume ; she contendeth not, nor preferreth her own opinion 
before others.” 



NY one might have known, from the 


general aspect of things at Conesus 
Corners, that it was Sunday morning, even 
if the three church -bells had not been ring- 
ing so harmoniously. There was no sound 
of labor in the harvest-fields. The cattle 
gathered under the shade or stood with the 
cool water of the creek rippling around their 
feet. People, as they strolled through the 
grass-grown streets of the little village, had 
time to greet one another on the way to 
church, and they took the time (if they 
loved such things) to watch the birds or the 
butterflies or tall thistles — to enjoy the hum 
of bees or to look over fences at their neigh- 
bors’ gardens. 

In the old Hopkins home everything was 


247 


248 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


as neat, as orderly, as usual, but there was a 
deeper shade to the Sabbath solemnity. Lit- 
tle Yolande felt it in various simple ways. 
The deacon forgot to fill Eunice’s old-fash- 
ioned purple and bronze pitclier with gar- 
den flowers and to set it on the breakfast- 
table, as he had done on other Sundays. He 
did not talk about the chapter at prayers, 
but read it in a slow, labored way, as if he 
had mislaid his spectacles and his eyes were 
dim. Eunice dressed the child without one 
of the common injunctions ‘‘not to get a 
speck of dirt ” on her clean attire, and be- 
tween father and daughter scarcely a word 
was exchanged. When the church-bell be- 
gan to ring the little girl exclaimed in sur- 
prise, 

“ Why, Aunt Eunice has not got herself 
ready !” 

The deacon, who had put on his broad- 
brimmed hat and taken his . knotty stick in 
his hand, glanced up at Eunice’s every-day 
calico and asked sadl}", 

“ What ! not going to church ?” 

“There may be a great many times for 
me to spend Sunday in our old meeting- 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 249 

house, but ” — she swallowed something in her 
throat — adding gruffly, “ not many more 
hereJ^ 

Turning, she went swiftly out of sight 
into the bedroom where one Sunday, twenty 
years before, her mother had in dying given 
to her a blessing and the charge of careless 
little Ben. She had not come out when the 
old man and Yolande joined the procession 
winding down the hill to the church. 

The Bev. Justus Halsay was, in the opin- 
ion of most of his parishioners, “ wearing 
well but Judge Balcom was getting some- 
what disaffected toward his pastor. He was 
too much addicted to what the judge called 
“giving Bible-readings.” More than once, 
instead of taking a text as a starting-point, 
and then going whither he would in an 
orderly disquisition, Mr. Halsay had read a 
Gospel story of Christ and his disciples, and 
made it, as Uncle Zeb said, “seem for all 
the world as if Peter and John was actually 
folks'' Such doings pleased many of the 
oldest and the youngest in the congregation, 
and interested several hitherto dull outsiders. 
The judge himself admitted that “within 


250 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


proper limitations it was wise to tell the 
sick, the dying, those in affliction or any 
who might be worsted in the battle of 
life, — to tell them tenderly and patiently 
about that One who was himself ^ a man 
of sorrows and acquainted with grief/ yet 
who came among men that he might bind 
up the broken-hearted, proclaim liberty to 
Satan’s captives and be throughout all time a 
Saviour, a Redeemer. But ” — and the judge 
pronounced this word with judicial emphasis 
— there were even at the Corners minds 
able and eager to grapple with the intellect- 
ual questions of the age ; they needed to be 
equipped for strife. To such keen-question- 
ing intellects Mr. Halsay ought to bring 
suggestive statements. They needed to know 
what was astir in the skeptical world — what 
was the newest phase of German rationalism, 
for instance; in short, it was necessary to keep 
abreast with the advanced thought of the 
century.” Now, Mr. Halsay had been at 
Conesus Corners a whole summer, and for 
all the information he had given such peo- 
ple as Mr. Potter and Deacon Hopkins 
about Strauss or Renan or Darwin or Hux- 


im. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


251 


ley, there might never have been such think- 
ers and writers on the face of the earth. 

In point of fact, the judge was exactly 
like the grumbler who declared his minister 
was paid for knowing Greek and Hebrew, 
and the congregation ought to have a little 
of both, even if they did not understand 
it.’^ 

Now, on this particular Sunday morning 
the judge was not feeling his best. He had 
been suffering under an attack of dyspepsia, 
for one thing. He had, moreover, heard 
expressed during the week just gone what 
he considered a really exaggerated sympa- 
thy for Deacon Hopkins, and along with 
this sympathy an undue freedom in discuss- 
ing his own personal and private relations 
with the old man. The judge thought of 
himself, in a respectful, expansive manner, 
as an incarnation of the law, and his theory 
was that the law could do no wrong. It 
might be severe, it must be just; meanwhile, 
he wished ‘'people would mind their own 
business,'’ and all the way to church he was 
saying this to himself. 

Herbert accompanied him, looking as 


252 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


brave and bright as a young prince just 
coming into his inheritance. 

The judge found two shabby little Sun- 
da3^-school scholars nestled cozily into his 
church-pew, and hustled them out rather 
peremptorily before he established himself 
there to wipe his gold spectacles, and, mount- 
ing them on his Roman nose, to gaze search- 
ingly about the congregation. 

The little church was well filled that day, 
and Mr. Halsay’s opening services were 
very earnest and heartfelt. The deacon 
leaned against his pillar, worn by forty 
years’ contact with his shoulder, and sang 
brokenly, his soul full of mingled emotions, 

‘One there is above all others 
Well deserves, the name of Friend.” 


Now, Mr. Halsay had been out of town 
nearly all the week, and had heard none of 
the talk about the deacon and the judge. 
He had learned casually that the old man 
had lost money by a bank-failure, but as to 
how much or what that loss signified he had 
no idea. The sermon he had selected for 
the morning was not a new one, because his 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 253 

usual study-hours had been sacrificed to a 
call of duty outside the parish. It was 
therefore without a thought of preaching at 
any one individual that Mr. Halsay, after 
reading the story of the Good Samaritan, 
gave out for his text the lawyer's question : 

Who is my neighbor T' It was precisely 
such a sermon as must be preached from 
that text, unless the obvious meaning of the 
great Teacher’s words are to be set aside and 
some far-fetched application of the simple 
narrative undertaken. During the first half 
of the discourse perhaps not more than three 
people in the congregation thought of the 
deacon and the judge, although Uncle Zeb 
did secretly hope the heart of the latter was 
being touched by the lesson of kindliness, of 
Christian helpfulness. When the priest and 
the Levite came in for a share of attention 
some remarks on hard-heartedness caused 
several hearers to touch their neighbors’ el- 
bows; others smiled approvingly at Sidney 
Smith’s quoted speech that ‘‘there would be 
many more good Samaritans if it were not 
for the cost of the oil and the twopence.” 
On went Mr. Halsay, his own face beaming 


254 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


with enthusiasm over the beauty of Chris- 
tian love and charity. 

The judge’s face grew pink, grew red, grew 
almost purple. His right boot began tapping 
the footstool like a trip-hammer. Suddenly 
his gold glasses came off, he stiffened himself 
erect, to the amazement of most of the audi- 
ence, and then with a mien intended to be 
both wrathy and majestic, with a step that 
was undeniably noisy. Judge Balcom strode 
down the central aisle and slammed the sanc- 
tuary-door behind him. 

A gasjD of awed surprise on the part of 
the people was followed by a quick glance at 
the preacher. Would he be able to stand 
up under such a shock ? He certainly was 
capable of sustaining it ; furthermore, he 
looked after the judge at first curiously, then 
with a passing apprehensive interest; evi- 
dently he fancied the irate brother had been 
taken ill. He finished his sermon, prayed 
as one talking reverently to his God and 
Father, and gave out the closing hymn : 

“ How blest the tie that binds 
Our hearts in sacred love ! 

The fellowship of kindred minds 
Is like to tliat above.” 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 255 

While the hymn was being sung the judge 
was plunging down the street, charging as he 
went an imaginary jury who resembled the 
church trustees. What he said to them 
might be condensed into a sentence : It was 
the opinion of the court that Conesus Cor- 
ners had heard enough from the Rev. Justus 
Halsay.^’ Tlie sooner he was despatched to 
a new field of operations the better. 


CHAPTER XX. 


“For the little strength which is left is like a spark left in 
ashes. The spark is natural reason, which is enveloped in 
darkness, having still the power of discerning good and evil 
and the difference between truth and falsehood, while it is im- 
potent to perform that which it approves, and possesses neither 
the full light of truth nor the power over its own affections.” 


ES, Dr. Grantley had become outwardly 



J- less rude and careless since he had come 
to know Maria Wells. She was a helpless 
woman, ignorant of the world, living a life 
as unlike his as one life can be unlike an- 
other ; yet he liked to visit her in that home 
so peaceful ; he liked to think of her as he 
took long, solitary drives through the coun- 
try. Her image was with him in his moody 
hours as the reflection of some pure, bright 
evening star may be in a pool flir, far below 
it. The pool may be impure, but it reflects 
a faithful image of the loveliness so foreign 
to its own nature. 

One morning, after he had known her 


256 


DR. QBANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 257 

about a month, he came out of the cottage 
and started on his daily round of duties. 
He had gone about a half mile when he 
came to a little stream. Bordering it on 
each side, and reaching out to the road and 
back into the meadow, were innumerable 
spikes of golden-rod, and growing close be- 
side them as many soft purple asters. He 
remembered hearing Maria say to her moth- 
er the day before, “ Now is the time when 
all the roadsides and hedges are so beautiful ; 
you must get me golden-rod and asters when 
you go again for a walk.’’ 

“ I might get a bunch and turn back and 
take them to her,” thought the doctor, spring- 
ing out by the pretty creek in the morning 
sunshine. “ I never saw any beauty in them 
before. If, years ago, I had had a sister, or 
if my mother had lived, I might have been 
a man of finer grain. If Yolande had mar- 
ried me — I don’t know — she was good, but 
she did not,” he muttered, as, standing alone, 
his hands full of blossoms, a quick realization 
of his past came upon him. What had he 
to do with pretty gifts of fiowers, with new 
friendships, with praying Christian women ? 

17 


258 DB. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

He dashed the golden-rod into the stream, 
and in a moment more was driving rapidly 
down the road. Suddenly he wheeled about; 
he had forgotten an instrument he would 
certainly need. 

He passed Uncle Zeb, but he would not 
look at him. The old man was foolishly 
kind to his animals, so the Evil One whis- 
pered to the doctor, 

‘‘ Give fiery Tom one extra lash of your 
whip, just to make old Potter wince.’’ 

The whip cracked ; the horse went like 
the wind ; the doctor’s office was in plain 
sight ; there was no fear of his running into 
any team in these quiet streets. But, alas ! 
a little figure in a white sun-bonnet darted 
out from a hedge, tiny hands outstretched, 
chasing a butterfly. In a second she was 
under Tom’s heels, but the doctor, with a 
yell of warning, was holding him rearing 
in the air. Just quick enough he was to 
keep the child from being crushed, but not 
soon enough to prevent the catastrophe. Like 
a little bundle she was kicked to one side — 
flung into the soft grass, where she lay mo- 
tionless. The doctor was on his feet by the 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 259 

child almost with one leap, and had her in 
his arras. The sun-bonnet fell off, the eyes 
were covered, but tlie yellow-brown hair — 
The face was little Yolande’s. The man’s 
face was as white as the child’s; a great 
groan escaped him, with the words, 

“ Ben’s child again ! What if I have 
killed herr 

No one saw the accident ; no one was in 
sight while Dr. Grantley’s skillful hand felt 
heart, pulse and limbs. A little color was 
returning to her lips, when, gathering her 
carefully in his arms, he walked fast toward 
Deacon Hopkins’s open kitchen-door. As 
he crossed the threshold Eunice looked up 
and let fall a platter, breaking it to atoms. 

‘‘ She is not dead. Show me a bed, quick, 
and help undress her; I think her leg is 
broken.” 

‘‘How did it hap — ” stammered Eunice, 
half stupefied for the moment. 

“ I was driving fast ; she ran out suddenly, 
and my horse kicked.” 

With a cry like a wild animal Eunice 
sprang on him, and would have wrenched 
Yolande from his arms. She was beside 


260 


DB. OBANTLEY^S NEIGHBOBS. 


herself with the thought that this was the 
man who shot Ben, the cruel neighbor who 
hated them — who had now not spared even 
Ben’s helpless little one. 

‘‘ Let her alone. Show me a lounge or a 
bed,” he demanded fiercely. 

‘‘ There — put her down there. Don’t you 
touch her !” shrieked Eunice, utterly forget- 
ful that Grantley was a doctor. ‘‘Must you 
murder my brother and break my father’s 
heart? Must you make my life wretched, 
and then kill our precious little Yolande — 
Ben’s own baby ?” she wailed, wringing her 
hands in despair. 

The doctor’s voice was all at once low and 
firm : 

“ Miss Hopkins, help me or stand on one 
side.” 

He had the child on the bed and was un- 
dressing it as he added, 

“ The right leg is broken ; there is no other 
surgeon within ten miles, so stop your noise 
and help me, or call in some of the neigh- 
bors.” 

Eunice saw how suddenly tender he was 
to Yolande, who, opening her eyes, began to 


DR. GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 261 

moan. Coming to her senses, Eunice brought 
everything required for setting the broken 
bone. To do this she had to leave him with 
the little girl while she rushed over to his 
office and found splints, bandages and ether 
just where he told her they would be. In 
her absence he soothed Yolande as best he 
could, and hoped from the bottom of his 
heart that Eunice would not call the deacon. 
He could endure the woman’s anger and ha- 
tred (for it was hatred he saw in Eunice’s 
eyes), but he shrank from seeing the old man 
bow his white head under a new trouble. 

How still the kitchen was but for the 
child’s sobbing moan ! Not a chair in it 
seemed to have been moved since that day, 
twenty years before, when Ben and he (mis- 
chievous boys together) stopped the old-fash- 
ioned clock and examined its works. It 
would indeed seem strange to the Hopkinses 
to break up the long-established order of 
time out of mind. 

‘‘ I want grandpa — grandpa, not you,^ cried 
Yolande. 

The doctor, being alone, let his voice 
sound as pitiful as it would : 


262 DB. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

‘‘ My horse hurt you, little one, but I am 
very sorry for you. Grandpa can^t help you 
as I can when Aunt Eunice gets back. You 
don’t want him to see you in such pain now, 
do you, poor old man ?” 

“No, if you can stop the pain.” 

“After a little. You will be quiet a few 
— days; then you can run around as well 
as ever.” 

Eunice burst in just then, and obeyed 
every order given her, standing close by 
the doctor, helping efficiently, yet with set 
teeth and eyes that frightened Yolande 
when once she looked up before the an- 
sesthetic took effect. 

Judging from his past experiences. Dr. 
Grantley expected that every woman in the 
neighborhood would in a minute appear on 
the scene, but Eunice had not even aroused 
Helen or Mrs. Tibbits. What was to be 
done was done by this man and woman so 
repugnant to one another. When all was 
over, and Yolande, with her white cheeks 
against the pillow, looked like a crushed 
lily, the doctor gave full instructions as to 
her nursing and treatment. Eunice listened 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 263 

in grim silence. When he ended she asked 
sternly, 

‘'You know, do you, that the leg is all 
right for the present?” 

“ No surgeon could do any better ; it is a 
simple fracture ; there will be no trouble.” 

He meant to reassure her with the truth, 
but she believed him to have neither heart 
nor conscience — nothing but possible skill 
in his profession. 

“Very well, then; I will follow your 
directions to the letter. You need not enter 
the house again^ 

He stared at her in astonishment, not 
knowing the depth of her abhorrence of 
him, because ignorant of that worst deed 
of which she believed him guilty. He col- 
lected himself speedily and replied, 

“ My horse kicked the child and broke 
her leg. I have set the bone, and I shall 
see how the thing is working. If neglected 
the child may be crippled ; I will have no 
other doctor touch her. I shall come as 
long as I think it necessary. This is no 
time to let personal animosity affect your 
conduct.” 


264 DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

Eunice’s face was full of trouble and per- 
plexity. True, there was no other surgeon 
they could have to look after Yolande, so 
she said bitterly, 

If you must, you must ; but the horror 
of it — you putting your hands on Ben’s 
child !” 

He made no reply, but went away won- 
dering that he did not resent this woman’s 
evident estimate of his character. If he 
had been Ben’s murderer she could hardly 
have repelled him more fiercely. She did 
say, If you must murder my brother !” 
Alas ! In the sight of God — if there was 
a God — might not the man who led Ben 
along in his sad career be justly called his 
murderer? To-day Ben might have been 
a good and happy man, the possessor of 
these fields along which Dr. Grantley 
walked, if the doctor had not enticed him 
from home. 

In his path as he went lay the little white 
sun-bonnet where it had fallen off the soft 
curls. Poor little creature ! He was not 
fit to touch her in her innocence. By 
strange ways the Father in heaven leads 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 2B5 

men. One would have thought the logic 
of some powerful preacher, the shock of 
some awful judgment, must awaken this 
worldly, unbelieving soul ; but to-day two 
things had strangely shaken Dr. Grantley : 
first, the knowledge, as he stood with fiow- 
ers for the invalid in his hands, that he was 
not good enough to take them to a woman 
like Maria Wells, and now the pain of real- 
izing that Eunice’s horror was born of the 
thought that he should touch another of 
their loved ones. 

His patients found him as testy as ever 
that day. Mrs. Tibbits earnestly longed for 
a second call from the minister, and Helen 
did not so much as venture to knock on the 
shut door of the office and tell him that her 
lessons were learned and she was ready to 
recite them. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


“ Deal not roughly with him that is tempted, but give him 
comfort, as thou wouldst wish to be done to thyself.” 

E unice HOPKINS was an excellent 
nurse, and, burdened though she was 
with their domestic trouble, she developed 
wonderful gifts in the way of comfort, and 
even entertainment, for the poor child. Her 
touch was very tender and her sharp voice 
low and sweet as she sat by Yolande’s bed- 
side. She gave up entirely all household 
duties save those most imperative. At Yo- 
lande’s request she brought her apron full 
of gay hollyhocks from the garden, and obe- 
diently fashioned them into men, women and 
babies after a quaint fashion of the fanciful 
little girl. While her clumsy fingers were 
busy with the silky pink blossoms she would 
tell story after story of events which once 
happened in this same old house and garden. 
Every article of furniture had its history, 
266 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 267 

and was connected with the happy days 
which Yolande fancied peculiarly golden 
because Eunice referred to them so rever- 
ently. The father whom she had never 
seen she now imagined as a bright-eyed, 
curly-haired boy — a brother Ben with whom 
she would have had great frolics had she 
herself only chanced to belong to those 
earlier days. 

The deacon also spent many hours in the 
cool shaded room, but he rarely talked. If 
she grew restless at his silence, he sang old 
hymns, falling often between verses into long, 
sad reveries. 

When Dr. Grantley came, Eunice, at the 
first sound of his footstep, would spring to 
her feet and leave him to visit Yolande 
alone, only staying within call if he needed 
her. The doctor much preferred that she 
should stay out of the room, for the child 
prattled away to him without fear or any 
apparent aversion, and he could be more gra- 
cious when out from under the woman’s eye. 
One day he had a harvest apple in his pock- 
et, and Yolande, espying it, supposed of course 
he had brought it to her. He did not tell 


268 DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

her he had not done so, but gave it into her 
little hand. She dropped it by her side, and, 
reaching up, drew his face down, that she 
might kiss him. He touched the childish 
lips almost in fear, glancing back the instant 
after to see if Eunice was in sight. She was 
in the garden, for he heard her calling the 
chickens, so he smoothed the little one’s gold- 
en-brown curls and said, 

“ Do they tell you that you look like — 
anybody ?” 

“ Grandpa says I look like mamma. Aunt 
Eunice didn’t see her before she went away 
to heaven, but grandpa did see her, and I 
came back here with him. Aunt Eunice 
isn’t like mamma one bit, but I love her.” 
She waited a moment before glancing through 
the open door at an old-fashioned looking- 
glass in the kitchen, and she added : ‘‘ Aunt 
Eunice cries sometimes, just as my mamma 
cried when she thought I couldn’t see her. 
I did see her in that glass yesterday, and she 
went and stood ever and ever so long by that 
high old mantel-piece, and she kissed it once, 
just as if it was somebody. Wasn’t that fun- 
ny? We are going to move — did you know 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 269 

that? — bat Aunt Eunice doesn’t know where. 
I guess she doesn’t care much about it ; she 
says, ‘ Never mind,’ when I ask her if it will 
be prettier than this place.” 

The doctor interrupted the child’s confi- 
dences by getting ready to go, and when 
Eunice came from the garden Yolande was 
alone and asleep. 

That same afternoon the doctor visited 
Maria Wells. When the strictly profession- 
al part of his duty was done he had fallen 
into the way of staying to talk a while with 
his patient on many and varied topics. He 
had almost no social intercourse with any 
one, and he enjoyed these informal conver- 
sations. She surprised him by her knowl- 
edge of human nature, of the motives that 
move people, and of the means by which 
they may be made to act or not to act. 
When he half playfully desired to know 
how she had become so wise, she, in the 
same laughing way, declared she had only 
followed the example of all great philoso- 
phers and looked within herself 

‘‘ Mother has been telling me of poor lit-* 
tie Yolande Hopkins,” she said this day 


270 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


when Dr. Grantley leaned back in the arm- 
chair always now set out for him ; but I 
am so glad she is getting on nicely, and 
perhaps it will keep Eunice from brooding 
over her own troubles. Is it not sad that 
they must leave the old homestead 

‘‘They feel it to be so, I’ve no doubt.” 

“Yes, indeed, as we would feel it in their 
places. I hoped Judge Balcom would not 
push matters as he has done, but mother 
says there is a man from Castleton who 
wants to buy the place, with full possession 
at once. I told mother I was sure that 
the deacon could borrow the money to pay 
off the mortgage, but she says he will not 
make any effort of the kind, because he 
does not know when he could pay. Eunice 
says if the blow is to be unceasingly threat- 
ening them, she would rather have it fall 
at once.” 

Maria’s cheeks were flushed and her dark 
eyes were soft with sympathy. 

The doctor was apparently lost in the 
study of a little engraving on the wall, but 
‘she continued : 

“I think perhaps the judge might have 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 271 

been more easy with the Hopkinses, but he 
is very angry at Mr. Halsay.’’ 

What has the parson done ? — tried to 
make peace and burnt his own fingers?’’ 

“ He preached a sermon on brotherly 
kindness last Sunday, and Judge Balcom 
is sure he meant to make a personal appli- 
cation of some part of it to this affair of 
his with Deacon Hopkins. Mr. Potter thinks 
Mr. Halsay never once thought of doing 
such a thing.” 

‘‘ How these Christians love one another !” 
said the doctor dryly. 

Maria made no answer to that, but after 
a time she said, 

‘‘ Did you ever know a better man than 
Deacon Hopkins?” 

‘‘ I have had very little to do with the old 
man for years past. Probably you know him 
well, if I do not.” He stirred uneasily in 
his chair, then went on, rather sternly : We 
have nothing in common, possibly just be- 
cause he is, as you say, so good. You admit 
me to your home. Miss Wells, as a physician 
able to treat your case — I fully believe I 
am that — but I do not come labeled as a 


272 DR. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

good man, according to Conesus Corners’ 
ideas of goodness. 1 am far from being a 
monster of iniquity, or even immoral, but 
Eunice Hopkins would cross herself when 
I appeared if she were a Roman Catholic.” 

I don’t know what you call ‘ Conesus 
Corners’ ideas.’ I suppose there is only one 
way to be good.” 

“ How ? if I may ask. I am more curious 
about Maria Wells’s ideas than about the 
Corners’ code of morals.” 

The flush deepened on the woman’s face 
as she recited in a low, even voice, ‘‘ ‘ One 
of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a 
question tempting him, and saying, Master, 
which is the great commandment in the 
law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 
This is the first and great commandment. 
And the second is like unto it : Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself.’ ” 

My visiting-list is not made up of those 
of whom I could conscientiously assert that 
they carried out this faultless programme,” 
was the listener’s cool comment. 







Dr. Grantley’s visit to Maria Wells 


Page 273 



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DR. QBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 273 

“But you would find many who were 
honestly anxious to do it — who were trying 
to do it under many discouragements?’^ 

“ Perhaps. Well, I fall short on the first 
half, and Eunice Hopkins, who is a thor- 
ough-going Presbyterian sister, I believe, 
trips up on the last half : she simply hates 
me, her neighbor.” 

Maria raised herself on her elbow, and, 
looking straight in Dr. Grantley’s face, said 
with a tone of earnest interest, almost of 
sympathy, 

“ I wish you would tell me why Eunice 
does not like you. She once spoke to me 
as if you had injured her or hers.” 

“I have done that,” he replied grimly. 

“And can you make no reparation?” 

“ Never — in this world or in the next.” 

She marked the bitterness in his tone, 
and persisted with child-like fearlessness: 

“You could at least repent and be for- 
given.” 

“ If remorse could avail I have felt it. 
As for forgiveness, what good would that 
do? I don’t grudge Eunice the relief of 
hatred, if it is a relief.” 

18 


274 DR. QBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

Oh, I can't believe this of her. She is 
a woman of very strong feelings, but — " 
Maria hesitated a moment in her eager- 
ness, then went on : 

Why, even in the mouth of an old pa- 
gan a writer has put these words : ^ Of all 
the powerful impulses which stir our hearts, 
only one belongs wholly to the Evil One. 
Hate is a devastator, and in the soul that 
it occupies all that is noble grows not up- 
ward toward the light, but downward to the 
earth and darkness. Everything may be 
forgiven by the gods save only hatred be- 
tween man and man.' I read and thought 
of that yesterday, and I believe it." 

“ Then we will agree that Eunice Hopkins 
loves me." 

He spoke almost sneeringly, and at first 
had no mind to say more; but, sitting there 
in that quiet room with this frail woman, 
whose life was so uplifted above all strife 
and turmoil, it all at once seemed to him 
that he could tell her how dark and unsat- 
isfying his own life had been — how baneful 
his infiuence on others. To what end he 
would do this he did not consider ; he would 


DR. QRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 275 

at least let her see why Eunice abhorred 
him. 

“ I will show you the whole matter,” he 
began, very impulsively for him ; and there- 
upon he went back to his first acquaintance 
with Ben Hopkins, and told her the whole 
story of their later intercourse. He admit- 
ted that he had possessed almost unbounded 
influence over Ben, and now realized that 
that influence had been harmful — never any- 
thing else. In detail he told of their city-life, 
of their first acquaintance with Yolande’s 
mother, of Ben’s marriage, and finally of the 
tragic ending to his young life. The nar- 
ration was sometimes slow and labored, as 
if the doctor half regretted his confession, 
but oftener he talked rapidly, as if glad 
to unburden his soul to some interested 
listener. 

Such a listener he had in Maria through- 
out the whole story. He made no excuses 
for himself, he begged for no sympathy, feel- 
ing that he deserved none; yet it touched 
him inexpressibly to feel that over and above 
Maria’s appreciation of the deacon’s grief at 
Ben’s conduct — that over and above her pity 


276 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


for Ben^s wife and for Eunice — she was sorry 
for him, the sinner. 

“ It is a sad, sad story,^’ she said when he 
ceased talking, “and I can easily see how, 
to a woman like Eunice Hopkins, the sight 
of one so connected with her brother’s career 
must be suggestive of many, very many, 
painful thoughts. You, it may be, have al- 
ways seemed to her without regret, careless 
and indifferent. You have never told her 
you were sorry — ” 

“ Never !” broke in Dr. Grantley impetu- 
ously. “She is a woman with hot blood, 
not water, in her veins. I am not blaming 
her. When I broke little Yolande’s leg did 
I help matters by saying, ‘I am sorry’? 
She burst out on me like a fury. Would 
she do any less, believing as she does that 
I ruined Ben, soul and body, if I went 
whining, ‘ I am sorry ’ ? That does not 
give them back the boy. I would die 
gladly if he might live again for them, 
but—’ 

“ But they do not know it ; they believe 
you care nothing. I tell you, it does make 
a difference.” 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 277 

“lu what? Not in the past.” 

“ In their feelings toward you.” 

‘‘ I don’t care what they feel toward me.” 

She did not believe him, but she could 
find nothing to say for a moment ; then her 
eyes filled with tears, and she murmured, 

‘‘ God help*you ! — the deacon and Eunice 
and youy 

He tried to look unconcernedly out of the 
open window, but he did not see the swaying 
elm tree outside nor hear the twitter of the 
birds. The lines about his stern mouth soft- 
ened a little ; he arose soon, saying, 

“ Take a spoonful of my last prescription, 
and send your doctor home if he ever stays 
and tires you out again.” 

She did not listen to him : a new thought 
had absorbed her, and her face was very pale, 
her voice sharp with excitement, as she spoke 
out suddenly : 

Dr. Grantley, you are not a poor man, 
are you ?” He stared at her in surprise as 
she added quickly, “Are you not what here 
at the Corners is called ‘ well off’ ?” 

“ I suppose I am,” he answered : “ I can 
afford to give away unnumbered pills and 


278 DB. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBOBS. 

powders if I like, or to stop giving them 
at all.” 

Her breath came so fitfully she could 
hardly go on : 

“Then will you not in some way secure 
the Hopkins’s home to them? You could 
do it, and end Eunice’s hard feelings.” 

“ Offer them money in exchange for their 
only son and brother — placate them with a 
gift ? You don’t know the Hopkins race.” 

“ Oh, I don’t believe they would look at 
it in that way,” she exclaimed, distressed 
and frightened, now that her words had been 
uttered. 

“We each see with the eyes we happen to 
possess: we can do no more,” he returned, 
taking his hat from the table and going out 
with a simple “ Good-afternoon.” 


CHAPTER XXII. 


“ It is great wisdom not to be rash in thy doings, nor to stand 
firmly in thine own conceit.’’ 

T he Sunday after Judge Balcom’s indig- 
nant departure from his usual place of 
worship he marched the length of the little 
village main street and entered the Method- 
ist church, followed by his meek and patient 
wife. He was pleasantly greeted by the 
minister after the morning exercises were 
over, but it chagrined him somewhat that 
no great excitement attended his movements. 
Privately, the good Methodist brethren were 
more embarrassed than delighted by this ac- 
cession to their ranks. 

The judge himself felt— well, rather im- 
portant. He had asserted himself. In a 
letter to the Rev. Justus Halsay — a letter 
full of polysyllabic wrath and weighty with 
scriptural quotations rounding off vague de- 
nunciations of blind leaders of the blind— 

279 


280 DR. GEANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

lie had let that gentleman know that he 
could henceforth count on him as a high- 
toned enemy. He had thrown the most ex- 
pensive pew in the church back on the hands 
of the trustees, and had refused to pay an- 
other cent of an extra amount due on the 
minister’s salary. Lastly, he had admonish- 
ed the session to bestir itself to get rid of 
“ this man Halsay ” and get some one who 
could draw members in instead of driving 
them away. When this was accomplished, 
and not until then, would he return. Twen- 
ty persons had joined the church under the 
new minister, but the judge was thinking of 
quality, not quantity, when he expressed him- 
self in this way. 

Wishing to satisfy all faultfinders, he had 
given the deacon a few more weeks in which 
to “ turn himself,” although the latter, un- 
gratefully as he thought, assured him he 
could do nothing in that time. 

Herbert Balcom had little interest in what 
he called this » tempest in a teapot.” He 
liked Mr. Halsay ; he had for weeks been 
conversing with him in regard to his pros- 
pective travels, and he did his best to soothe 


JDK GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 281 

his father’s offended dignity. It was all in 
vain. So, as the time of Bert’s departure 
drew near, everything else was forgotten in 
the excitement of his leave-taking. He 
liad become very popular in the town during 
his vacations ; every one wished him well and 
prophesied great things for him in the years 
to come. The night before he left the Cor- 
ners for New York City, where he was to 
stay a few days before he sailed, — that night 
the judge gave the most stylish party ever 
given in the place. ‘‘ Caperers ” from the 
nearest city (to quote Mrs. Tibbits) arranged 
the supper : there was a band of music in 
the balcony ; and every respectable young 
person for miles around was made happy by 
an invitation to the feast. For years after 
traditions of that “Balcom party ” were 
handed down from mother to daughter at 
Conesus Corners. It was told how the 
dishes were trimmed with flowers made of 
vegetables — ‘‘camellias cut out of turnips, 
and green lettuces dressed up as if they 
had been bonnets,” etc., etc. The editor of 
the Conesus Corners Courier made a farewell 
address to young Balcom full of compliment- 


282 DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 

ary allusions to father and son. He became 
a trifle confused in marking out Berths line 
of procedure on ‘‘ classic soil/’ and he set the 
Acropolis on one the “ seven hills ” of Home, 
but it might just as well have been there, for 
all the Conesus people knew or cared. So, 
taking all in all. Judge Balcom was a proud 
man as he watched his boy that night. 

Dr. Grantley was present at the party 
with Helen. It had required much per- 
suasion from the Balcoms to secure the doc- 
tor’s presence, but the judge wanted “pro- 
fessional men, not merely farmers’ sons,” to 
do honor to the occasion. 

It was Helen Grantley’s first introduc- 
tion to anything “ really like society,” as 
Mrs. Tibbits declared ; but the young girl 
looked and appeared very pretty, modest and 
sensible. She never knew that a quite new 
turn to her life was the result of her going 
with the doctor to this party, but so it was. 

Late in the evening Dr. Grantley was an 
unseen auditor of a gossiping talk about him- 
self and Helen. A lady in another room, 
but not three feet from the library in which 
the doctor was, said to a companion. 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 283 

‘‘Yes, they say he is educating her for 
his wife ; he teaches her himself in his lei- 
sure hours; no school here good enough. 
He dresses her very nicely lately, and Mrs. 
Tibbits says she may do just what she likes 
in that old, gloomy house.” 

“Do tell!” was next said; “but she is a 
cousin or niece, and he is an infidel and ugly.” 

“ I can’t help it ; he lets her go to church. 
No ; they say she is not very nearly related.” 

That was enough. The doctor was sur- 
prised, but not sorry that he had accepted 
the judge’s invitation. 

The next day he called Helen and Mrs. 
Tibbits into his office and had a very busi- 
ness-like conversation. He said he had sat- 
isfied himself that Helen had a fine mind, 
and he had resolved to educate her for a 
teacher, that in time to come she might be 
entirely independent. He wished her to 
procure school-catalogues and let him see 
them — to consult with intelligent outsiders 
and discuss what boarding-school they had 
better decide on for her home during the next 
four or five years. He charged Mrs. Tibbits 
with the duty of getting her ready at once. 


284 DB. OBANTLEY^S NEIGHBOBS. 

“ Oh, I am so glad, Dr. Grantley ! I can- 
not thank you enough,” cried Helen. 

Then you do not dread the idea ?” 

‘‘ I like it very much. It is something I 
have longed for, but did not suppose I could 
attain to.” 

Later in the day there came a rap on the 
office-door, and Helen entered in answer to 
the doctor’s loud “ Come in.” 

She went to the table by which he sat, 
and, visibly trembling, said, 

I ought to tell you one thing before you 
agree to educate me, for it may make a dif- 
ference.” 

‘‘What is it?” 

“I have become a Christian.” 

“ At what time, by the hour and minute- 
hands of the clock?” 

The words were mocking, but the tone 
was not as harsh as it would once have 
been ; so the young girl answered simply, 

“ Since I have prayed and studied my Bi- 
ble, and since Maria Wells has taught me a 
great deal I never knew or thought of before.” 

“Are you any better satisfied with your- 
self?” 


DB. ORANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 285 

I see much more to live for and to do and 
to become, and I am far more contented not to 
be and to do some other things,” returned 
Helen, finding it hard to stand before this 
man whose lips seemed curling into a sneer. 

‘‘Well, that reply is indefinite enough 
to be oracular, but I suppose it is all a 
mystery to the uninitiated like myself. 
However, I am sure a Christian needs an 
education as well as a pagan. It makes no 
difference with the school-plan.” 

“ Thank you. I think you are very kind,” 
murmured Helen, turning away ; and her 
gratitude pleased Dr. Grantley, for he rarely 
gave any one reason to thank him. 

The next weeks were busy ones to the 
young girl, but she sang like a bird about 
the house. Mrs. Tibbits for the first time 
awoke to the realization of the fact that 
Helen’s church-going had meant something 
to her; she resolved to brave the doctor’s 
sarcasm and go henceforth herself. Surely 
it was a strange change in the sharp-spoken, 
discontented girl, this which caused her to 
ask Mrs. Tibbits’s pardon for the trouble she 
had given her in the past. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


“When thou thinkest thyself farthest off from Me, often- 
times I am nearest unto thee. When thou judgest that almost 
all is lost, then oftentimes the greatest gain of reward is close 
at hand.” 


NCLE ZEB POTTER bad come to the 



^ doctor’s office to get something for his 
wife’s liver, and, having got it, he lingered 
as usual for a chat : 

Well, young Balcom sails to-morrow ; 
they say he went down to the city Monday 
night. A fine chap Bert is.” 

“ Oh, he is well enough,” grumbled the 
doctor, “ but I’ll be glad when he clears the 
country, for I’m bored almost to death with 
the judge’s talk about him. No old hen with 
one surprising chicken ever kept up such a 
clatter and fuss.” 

‘‘ The jedge is goin’ on to-night to see him 
off. There he comes this here minit, doctor, 
and a-pointin’ straight for your office.” 

“ He has forgotten to tell me the last com- 


286 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 287 

pliment Bert received or the latest smart 
speech he made, but he seems in a mighty 
hurry.” 

Before Uncle Zeb could make another re- 
mark in his turn the office-door was flung 
quickly open, and both men started at the 
pallor of the judge’s face and the agitation 
of his manner. He held a torn envelope 
and a telegram in his hand, which last he 
thrust before the doctor, who read it aloud 
at once : 

“ Your son is ill at the St. James Hotel — 
typhoid fever.” 

Dr. Grantley had scarcely taken in the 
meaning of the message when the judge, 
clutching his arm, exclaimed breathlessly, 

‘‘ The next train leaves at eleven-fifty. 
You must go with me, Grantley. You 
shall. I’ll pay you double, treble, for time 
lost here. You will have the best city coun- 
sel, but I must have you to watch him night 
and day. You haven’t lost a fever case in a 
long time, have you, doctor ?” 

Seeing the doctor hesitate an instant, he 
half entreated, half commanded him: 

Say ! speak ! I must get to his mother ; 


288 DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 
we must start by the first train. Will you 

go?" 

Yes/’ 

And go prepared to stay days — weeks, if 
necessary. Of course this is the end of his 
sailing for a while yet;” and the judge grew 
a little calmer, having gained the doctor’s 
consent to going with him. He turned 
about, snatched up the telegram and has- 
tened home. Mr. Potter, knowing that the 
doctor must now have much to attend to, 
left him without a word more. 

A little before noon the judge. Dr. Grant- 
ley and Mrs. Balcom (a gentle little lady, 
and loving little mother to Bert) started 
for New York. In due time they reached 
the city and the hotel. A college friend of 
Bert’s met them, and told them that the 
young man from the hour of his arrival 
had complained of a terrible pain in his 
head ; he had grown more and more ill, and 
that morning had developed serious symp- 
toms. The father and mother were assured 
that he had received constant care — that the 
physician summoned was a man of skill and 
fine reputation, but their hearts sank within 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 289 

them as they traversed the grand halls to- 
ward Berths room. 

My poor boy, this is too bad exclaimed 
the judge when they entered the door; “but 
we’ll have you up soon : I have brought Dr. 
Grantley with me.” 

Young Balcom raised himself on his el- 
bow, and in all his life he had never looked 
better, for his eyes were flashing, his cheeks 
flushed with fever: 

“Yes, father, we’ll go over the Simplon, 
but have you got the passport? — and all the 
Greek verbs came to that party. It was 
hard — his head ached fearfully on the moun- 
tains.” 

Dr. Grantley went near and quietly put 
him back on the pillow, feeling his pulse 
meanwhile; but the father was completely 
unmanned. He clung to the footboard and 
cried like a child : that Herbert would not 
be rational had not occurred to him. 

So the fight for life began, and was re- 
newed day after day, day after day. Dr. 
Grantley could not have done more for a 
brother. Physicians came and went. The 
judge poured out his money like water. 

19 


290 DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

Hotel men and maids, mindful of fees, vied 
with one another to wait upon the watchers 
and attendants. A trained night-nurse re- 
lieved a trained day-nurse, but nobody could 
keep the judge from his idolized boy more 
than an hour or two at a time. He watched 
every potion given, he studied every face 
with pathetic eagerness. His pomposity fell 
off as he plead with each doctor to “study 
the case ” — “ try something different.” Still, 
he never once admitted to himself that Her- 
bert could die. That word was not even 
spoken in his presence until about the four- 
teenth day, when he saw the attendants often 
whispering together. He waited impatiently 
until Dr. Grantley had gone alone into a 
little room kept for the watchers’ resting- 
place ; then he followed, and, falling on the 
doctor as if he would tear the truth out of 
him, he gasped, 

“ Is the boy worse ?” 

“Yes, judge, he is worse.” 

“ Do you think he may die ?” 

The doctor had to answer slowly, 

“ I fear he can’t hold out. I never saw 
a fever rage as his has ; he — ” 


DR. ORANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 291 

But with a heartbroken cry the father 
had fallen on a couch : 

“ He must live, doctor ! He shall live ! 
The Almighty wouldn’t take that boy away 
from me. He’s more to me than my own 
soul. What can be done ? Oh, prayers 
must move God. Come, down on your 
knees, Grantley, and we’ll pray.” 

The tears were rolling down his face, while 
the doctor was asking himself if this bowed, 
shaking creature could be the proud Judge 
Balcom of Conesus Corners. His own eyes 
were dim, but he stammered, 

‘‘ You pray, judge; I’m not a Christian. 
I’d do anything else, but I can’t pray.” 

You shall cried the father, beside 
himself with anguish. But no, you don’t 
believe ; call my wife.” 

She came at the moment uncalled, her 
pale face so void of hope that he gave her 
only one glance, and, pulling her down be- 
side him, broke out into prayer. Dr. Grant- 
ley sat with bowed head, in reverence for a 
grief such as he had rarely seen. So sitting, 
he listened to the strangest prayer he had 
ever heard. 


292 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

Perhaps it was the judge’s first real pray- 
er, the only one that ever came from out the 
depths of his nature. How he begged for 
that boy’s life, and unconditionally ! God’s 
will must be his will. How he promised ! 
how he revealed himself! He told the Lord 
that Bert was his idol, but if he would re- 
store him to health he himself would be a 
better man. He dealt in no grand general- 
ities, but he vowed that he would build a 
new Presbyterian church — he would go back 
and humble himself to the minister. He 
confessed that he had been jealous of Dea- 
con Hopkins’s reputation for piety, and an- 
gry at old Zeb Potter for not seeming to 
respect his theological learning. He con- 
fessed that he never had family prayers 
unless a minister was visiting him, but that 
he was proud of praying well in the prayer- 
meeting. He’d come right down and con- 
fess his failings to anybody and everybody 
if that boy of his might again walk the 
earth a well man. As he wailed, O God ! 
O God ! give him back to me I” Grantley’s 
chin quivered like a baby’s. To be consist- 
ent he ought to have despised the judge, but 


BE. GEANTLEY^S NEIGHEOES. 293 

he never had felt so warmly toward him in 
his life. 

That night the fever began to abate, but 
it was succeeded by a stupor. Once or twice 
the young man smiled into his mother’s white 
face, and one morning he murmured, 

“It was a short voyage, father — almost 
over, then a new country.” 

An hour later he was dead. 

There was chaos after that in the judge’s 
heart and brain. It was Dr. Grantley who 
made all the necessary arrangements. Judge 
Balcom sat dumb by the motionless feet and 
vaguely wondered that the frail mother could 
speak or think. When he was not finding 
it strange that the roar of Broadway went 
on, that the stream of happy life had not 
stopped there, he was realizing that God had 
not answered his prayer. Why not ? 

They started on a train that brought them 
into the station nearest the Corners about 
six in the evening, and on the same train 
with them was the coffin with Herbert’s body 
and the boxes holding his treasures, so care- 
fully marked for a “ new country,” but not 
that one whither he had gone. 


294 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

As the judge tottered down from the car 
he looked up and saw on the platform scores 
of silent, sad-faced friends and neighbors; 
nearest to him stood old Deacon Hopkins 
and Uncle Zeb Potter. He stretched out 
his arms suddenly and let them fall on 
theirs, and, so supported, sobbed, 

‘‘ The Lord has smitten me 

“ But he bindeth up the broken in heart, 
brother,’’ said the deacon, for Uncle Zeb was 
crying like a child and could not speak. 

The solemn little procession passed along 
in the shadow of nightfall and entered the 
Balcom mansion. Friends and neighbors 
had done everything for the stricken fam- 
ily that friends could do, and now they only 
lingered to hear what time had been set for 
the funeral. 

“ To-morrow afternoon,” replied Mrs. Bal- 
com ; “ I suppose we had better say two 
o’clock.” 

“And the minister?” asked Deacon Hop- 
kins gently. 

A faint flush passed over the judge’s white, 
haggard face when Mrs. Balcom hesitated to 
answer, but he said distinctly, “ Mr. Halsay 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 295 

— Herbert liked him/’ Then he turned 
quickly to Grantley and added, “ Go home, 
doctor, and rest ; you have had a hard time. 
I thank you from the bottom of my heart. 
You did all you could for my boy, but we’re 
powerless creatures, after all.” 

The doctor pressed his hand with respect- 
ful sympathy, and went his way homeward. 
It was after twilight now, and the Sep- 
tember crickets were making lonesome mu- 
sic. Everything seemed weird and half- 
unfamiliar in the aspect of the place, but 
strangest of all was the impression left by 
the judge’s last words. The haughty, self- 
sufficient man had come to see himself a 
“ powerless creature.” Why ? Because the 
finger of the Lord had touched him. 

What an honed prayer that was the 
judge had uttered ! Why was it not an- 
swered ? The doctor stopped, and there, in 
the starlight, tried without skeptical preju- 
dice to think it out as a reasoning Christian 
might do. The Lord knew best, of course, 
and Bert died just as Ben Hopkins died, 
without any reference to the hardness of 
Judge Balcom’s heart or the softness of the 


296 


DR. GRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


deacon’s. But could God answer such a 
prayer as Judge Balcom’s and be God? 
The judge was in earnest truly, but thought 
he might bribe the Almighty with gifts — 
that he might bring the Maker of heaven 
and of earth to his terms, and in a moment 
of extremity establish Judge Balcom’s will. 
Had the prayer gone unnoticed ? Was it 
the working of any superhuman Power that 
had changed the arrogant, self-sufficient man 
into a ‘‘powerless creature”? 

Like a solemn chant came into his mind 
the words of the old psalm : “ Before the 
mountains were brought forth, or ever thou 
hadst formed the earth and the world, even 
from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. 
Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, 
Beturn, ye children of men.” 

The doctor went on then, awed, half-as- 
tonished, at the intensity of his own emo- 
tions. In the days that followed he could 
not escape from the idea of God as he on 
that night apprehended him. In his inmost 
heart he could soon say, “ Thou hast set our 
iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the 
light of thy countenance.” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


“If thou canst not make thyself such an one as thou wouldst, 
how canst thou expect to have another in all things to thy lik- 
ing ? If all men were perfect, what should we have to suffer 
of our neighbor for the sake of God?” 



NE morning Dr. Grantley found at the 


^ post-office a letter for him, post-marked 
at a town in Iowa. He opened it, curiously 
glanced at the signature, and received no en- 
lightenment from that. He knew no “ Mrs. 
Emeline Hayward,’’ but the reading of the 
letter made him stand among the crowd of 
post-office idlers oblivious to everything 
and to every one. At last he put it in his 
pocket and walked slowly homeward. At 
his gate he turned again, and went to the 
lane that ran down to Deacon Hopkins’s 
wood-lot. 

The old man was there chopping, and did 
not see him until he stood close beside him 
in a little green amphitheatre ; then he start- 


297 


298 DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

ed, frightened lest there were some bad tid- 
ings from Yolande. 

Is the child — is anything wrong ?” he 
stammered. 

“ No ; she is doing remarkably well/’ an- 
swered the doctor; and at the sound of his 
voice the deacon suddenly remembered that 
these were the first words that had passed 
between them for years. He took off his 
broad hat, pushed back his white hair, ask- 
ing simply, as a little flush crept into his 
wrinkled cheeks, 

‘‘Are you well yourself, doctor?” 

“ Yes, thank you ; but I came to talk a 
while. Will you sit down here with me?” 

They were soon seated on logs, when the 
doctor began : 

“ You have had no reason to think me a 
friend in these years gone by, but I never 
knew until this morning the chief reason 
of the evident abhorrence that both you and 
your daughter feel for me. I supposed you 
hated me on general principles, and I 
have — ” He hesitated, for confession comes 
hard to a man like Dr. Grantley ; then he 
asked, “ Did you ever hear from any per- 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 299 

son the particulars of your son Ben's 
death ?” 

The deacon recoiled as if he now first 
realized a dreadful fact, and replied, 

“ Yes — Ben's wife told me all before she 
died." 

“ She told you what she thought was 
truth, but if she believed that her husband 
fell by my hand she was deceived. 1 have 
enough of wrong on my conscience, but not 
that — no, not that. Let me read you this 
letter and tell you the absolute truth, no 
more, no less." 

The deacon sat shivering in the warm sun- 
shine while scarcely less-agitated Dr. Grant- 
ley read the woman's letter. She began by 
telling of her efforts to find his address, 
which were long unsuccessful. Her hus- 
band, who had been an acquaintance of 
Grantley's, had died of consumption six 
months previous to the date of her letter. 
A little while before his death he had gain- 
ed her solemn promise to send his confession 
to Dr. Grantley — a confession that he had 
told Ben's wife that the doctor shot her hus- 
band — that he had by variations of this lie 


300 DB. GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBOBS. 

succeeded in clearing himself and keeping 
the afiair from coming out plainly before the 
public. Grantley’s name, residence and pro- 
fession were unknown, and so long as no 
harm came to him, Hayward silenced his 
conscience by doing for the widow and as- 
suring himself that as the shooting was pure- 
ly accidental, and he drunk at the time, he 
himself was a lucky man to go free, as he 
had succeeded in doing. 

Finishing the letter, the doctor went back 
and told the real story of that dreadful night. 
The deacon listened with his face buried in 
his hands, a faint groan now and then his 
only comment. When Grantley ended they 
sat a moment in silence, save for the sound 
of wood-chopping in the distance. 

‘Hf you suppose,’’ added the doctor, ‘‘that 
now that I think I have justified myself I 
fancy my hands are clear, you are mistaken. 
I never did Ben any good, but only harm. 
I was a curse to him, and I know it. You 
can tell Miss Eunice that I am not quite a 
devil, for that thought does not make my own 
life happy, and never has.” 

“God pity you, doctor, and forgive you as 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 


301 


I do and have forgiven you long ago ! You 
hurt Ben’s life, but the Lord has not taken 
from me all hope in his death. There are 
things which I treasure in my heart. They 
seem to me like proofs that Ben repented 
— that his face was turned homeward, and 
that, like the prodigal, he was seeking his 
Father’s house. Maybe I am too hopeful, 
but this trust cheers me here on earth, and 
hereafter there shall be no more ‘ sorrow nor 
crying,’ for ‘ God shall wipe away all tears ’ 
from my eyes in heaven.” 

'' Will you keep the letter and show it to 
Eunice ? It concerns no one else now,” said 
the doctor, rising. 

Yes, gladly. Eunice is — ” 

Eunice. Good-morning.” 

The deacon held out his wrinkled hand, 
and the doctor grasped it for the first time 
in many years ; then the old man returned 
to his work and Dr. Grantley stopped on his 
wav home to see Yolande. He caught sight 
of Eunice’s calico dress disappearing out of 
one door as he entered the kitchen by an- 
other door, but Yolande was ready to wel- 
come him with a bright smile. 


302 J)R ORANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

The child could sit up in a chair now and 
play with her dolls, particularly the new 
Warrenton purchase. The doctor’s call was 
short to-day, but when he left her he gave 
her a big yellow envelope, saying, 

“ There is something for the little girl 
whom my horse kicked. Keep it safe with 
grandpa’s papers.” 

‘‘ I will : it isn’t very pretty,” returned 
the child, frankly. 

Eunice made sure the intruder had de- 
parted before she came back to get dinner 
ready. Yolande wanted nothing, so she set 
the table and blew the old tin horn to sum- 
mon her father. 

How cool and clean the great kitchen 
was ! how tempting the simple meal ! She 
stood in the door waiting for him, as she 
had waited every summer for twenty years 
and more. When he came and had washed 
his face he must see little ‘‘sweetheart” 
before he ate. She, for her part, must know 
if he liked a yellow basque on the wax doll 
as well as he would like a purple cape. 

“ Come, come, father ! the potatoes are 
getting cold,” called Eunice. 


DR. GRANTLEY'S NEIGHBORS. 


303 


‘‘And see here, grandpa, this old yellow 
paper thing the doctor gave me. He said 
the horse sent it to me, I believe.” 

The deacon smiled, and put on his spec- 
tacles to examine it closer : 

“ Eunice ! come here !” 

Something in his voice caused her to drop 
a ladle and come at once to stand in the bed- 
room-door. 

His face was very bright as he exclaimed, 

“ Dr. Grantley has paid up all I owe to 
Judge Balcom, and has turned that amount 
over to Yolande! Here are the papers. 
Here, too, is a note plain enough ; he says 
it is a small thing to do, compared with the 
pain he has caused her and those who love 
her. The dear old home is ours now, Eu- 
nice — think of it!” 

His eyes were so dim with tears that he 
did not see her face grow dark. It shocked 
him inexpressibly when she broke out harshly, 

“ It is blood-money I Does he think he 
can pay us with dollars and cents for what 
he did? Fling it in his face, father, and 
tell him it is with the Lord he must settle 
for his sins.” 


304 


DB. QBANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


Eunice Hopkins,” said the deacon with 
low, sorrowful sternness, you know not what 
manner of spirit you are of. Beware how 
you hate and judge and condemn. Bemem- 
ber your Saviour’s warning. You will have 
more charity for Dr. Grantley when I tell 
you that he acknowledges that he sinned in 
leading Ben on to evil — ” Then of a sud- 
den they remembered Yolande’s presence 
and withdrew from the room, Eunice still 
quivering with indignation. 

‘‘And, daughter, we have done him some 
injustice in believing him to have — But 
you don’t know of the letter yet, do you ?” 

He drew out the Iowa letter and thrust it 
into Eunice’s hand. 

She carried it over to the window and 
read it from beginning to end ; then without 
a word she took the papers left with Yo- 
lande and examined them. When she laid 
them down it was to say grimly, 

“After all, it is given to the child — not 
left to you or to me to accept or to refuse 
it. It will be a galling recollection to me 
henceforth, never an obligation for real 
gratitude.” 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 305 

‘‘ Eunice, can you say the Lord’s Prayer 
now-a-days ?” 

No, I can’t — I haven’t for a long time 
and, bursting into tears, Eunice swept past 
the old man and out into the garden. 

He looked after her sorrowfully, and, sit- 
ting down by the untasted food, began to 
wonder if he was mean-spirited in his old 
age. No, it could not be that Christ meant 
to have any uncertain rule when he said, 
“ Love your enemies, bless them that curse 
you, do good to them that hate you, and 
pray for them that despiteful ly use you and 
persecute you.” Besides, Dr. Grantley was 
not now acting like an enemy, but rather 
like one who sought to be a friend. Should 
he be repelled ? 

The deacon ate his solitary meal, and went 
back to his work with a heart that grew 
lighter every moment of the long, beautiful 
afternoon. 

Poor Eunice had another fight all alone 
with — Eunice. 


20 


CHAPTER XXV. 


“ For when the grace of God cometh unto a man, then he 
is made able for all things.” 

T here were several persons at the Cor- 
ners who occasionally brought Maria 
Wells fruit, flowers and books; there was 
one who loved especially to bring her good 
news, and this one was Uncle Zeb Potter. 
She welcomed him very cordially, therefore, 
one afternoon when his cheery old face ap- 
peared over a basket of early pears that 
Mother Potter had sent her : 

ft 

I am very glad to see you. Uncle Zeb ; 
nobody has been in this week to visit me.’’ 

“ I see the doctor droppin’ in frequent. 
Is he helpin’ ye any ?” 

‘‘ I hope he will help me. I have not 
seen him since he came back with the Bal- 
coms last week ; he must have been very 
tired.” 

“ He was that ; 1 never see a man look 

306 


DR. QRANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 307 

worse used up. But I tell you, Conesus 
Corners will get good from that man in 
days to come.” 

“ He is our best physician nowy 

“Of course, but I’m thinkiu’ of souls, 
not bodies ; haven’t ye heard the news, Ma- 
rier ?” 

He sincerely hoped she had not, and when 
she eagerly asked, “ What news?” he con- 
tinued : 

“ Wa’ll, I will tell ye all about it. I 
dropped into the doctor’s office this morn- 
in’ to get a strengthenin’-plaster for mother ; 
she wears ’em now and then, and awful 
things they be too. The last stuck to her 
shoulder-blade so tight I had to take a hot 
flat-iron to her before I got it offi We were 
talkin’, or I was, and he was broodin’ over 
something. I concluded it was Herbert’s 
case, for by and by he began to say how 
queer it seemed that he was out there in 
the cemetery, life all over for him. I said 
I could realize that almost as easy as — yes, 
easier than — I could believe I was actually 
listenin’ to Judge Balcom last night at our 
Wednesday prayer-meetin’. Why, the man 


308 DR. OBANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

was as meek as Deacon Hopkins ! He said 
he had been proud and self-righteous — he 
had been bound to rule that church, from 
the minister down to the chap that blows 
the old organ, but he’d lost all desire for 
that now. All he wanted was to take up 
what was left of his life and do some good 
with it, while he followed the Lord Jesus 
Christ a good deal nearer than he ever fol- 
lowed him before. He asked Mr. Halsay’s 
pardon then and there for the mean things 
he’d said about him. ’Most everybody’s 
eyes got watery, I tell you. Eunice Hop- 
kins set by me and behaved mighty queer. 
I never supposed Eunice was nervous be- 
fore, but the judge’s penitence seemed a 
leetle more than she could stand. “ The dea- 
con said, ‘ Praise the Lord !’ right out, and 
kep’ a-sayin’ it, his face shinin’ like a 
blessed old angel’s. I told the doctor all 
that, and he listened quiet-like until I said 
I hoped the judge would help the deacon 
over this rough spot in his business, and 
Dr. Grantley said that was all right now.” 

It is ?” asked Maria eagerly. 

‘‘ Yes. I’ve heard since that Dr. Grantley 


DB. GBANTLEY'S NEIGHBOBS. 309 

has straightened the whole thing out, some 
way or another/’ 

Maria’s face was so full of delight that 
Uncle Zeb went on with renewed anima- 
tion : 

‘‘Just then who should come in but Judge 
Balcom himself! and right there, before the 
doctor, he tells me how sarcastical he has 
been to me^ and how he had tried to make 
me keep still in prayer-meetin’ by hints 
and digs. I always knowed he was mean- 
in^ me at such times — I couldn’t say I didn’t 
— but it just broke me all down to have him 
go on a*tellin’ how he’d be glad if I’d speak 
out plain about his besettin’ sins in the 
future if I saw he needed it. 

“The doctor he just sat stock-still until 
we got sort of settled down toward commoner 
kind of talk, then he spoke right out sud- 
dent : 

“ ‘ If ever a man was convicted of his sins, 
I am. If ever a man longed to begin a new 
life, I do. If ever a man needed pardon 
and hope and help from God for Christ’s 
sake, I do. Will you two men pray for 
me ?’ 


310 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


I don’t know at all as he meant us to 
pray then and there, but I couldn’t wait. I 
got down by the old settee, and by the shuf- 
flin’ of chairs I do expect those two once- 
stifip-necked, stiff-kneed critters got down too ; 
and there was true prayin’ done, for I didn’t 
do it all. The judge prayed as if his heart 
was melted. When we got up the doctor 
says, 

‘‘‘I have begun this in earnest; I shall 
never go back if the Lord will lead me on. 
You can tell everybody ; I want to be as open, 
if I am known hereafter as a Christian, as I 
have been bold and bitter as a scoffer.’ 

‘‘Isn’t it glorious news?” ejaculated Zeb, 
catching a new gleam of joy in Maria’s face. 

Not waiting for any reply, the earnest old 
man went on : 

“ I was so happy I could not keep myself 
from goin’ over to Deacon Hopkins’s. The 
deacon he took it all as if it was good, very, 
very good, but something he almost had rea- 
son to expect; but Eunice turned as white as 
a ghost. A body would have said she was 
scared at something. She never said it was 
wonderful or good; she just appeared as if 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 311 

she had got a shock of some sort. She never 
put in one word while her father and I was 
rejoicin'. We talked for an hour, more or 
less, and by and by the deacon's little grand- 
daughter wanted her cot bed pulled out in 
the kitchen, where we sat. Eunice roused 
up and did it, but then she set down by the 
child and hid her face in the bed-clothes. 
We didn't appear to notice, but I began to 
understand. I tell ye, Marier, when any 
man or woman who has his or her sins for- 
given once starts out a-liatin' a fellow-critter, 
it don't mean just what it does when one sin- 
ner hates another. The sinner knows what 
he's about, and is never took by surprise — 
he never supposes he is doing right ; but the 
Christian kind of cheats himself into think- 
in' he is only ‘ hatin' evil,' and that because 
he ‘fears the Lord.' He calls his passion 
‘righteous indignation,' and lots of private 
grudges get plastered over with that; he 
fancies it to be ‘zeal for the right.' He 
builds up a great monument to his wrath, 
and some day when he is restin' under it 
the Spirit of the Lord breathes on it, and I 
reckon the poor Christian thinks the uni- 


312 DB. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 

varse is a-tumbliii’ down around his ears and 
he’s goin’ to perish in the ruins. Eunice has 
hated the doctor, and he knows it as well as 
anybody. 

“ Wa’ll, I was just gittin’ ready to go, 
when in comes Dr. Grantley himself to see 
the child. The little bed was opposite the 
open door, and he didn’t see us old fellows 
in the corner. He’d scarcely come over the 
threshold when Eunice rose up suddent, and, 
leanin’ right over Ben’s little one, stretched 
out both her hands to the doctor. She did 
her best to say something, but she couldn’t ; 
her mouth was twitchin’ and the big tears 
chasin’ down her cheeks. And Grantley’s 
tongue wasn’t a bit readier, but he grasped 
her hands and shook ’em well. 

Now, haven’t I told you something worth 
listenin’ to?” asked Uncle Zeb, leaning back 
in his chair and taking breath. 

‘‘ I do not know what you could have told 
me that would have made me happier,” she 
replied, her face so radiant that Uncle Zeb 
went home and told his wife that ‘‘Marier 
Wells was as pretty as a picture-angel, and 
gettin’ fast ready to be a genuine one.” 


CHAPTER XXyi. 


“ For after winter followeth summer, after night the day re- 
turneth, and after a tempest a great calm.” 

T WO summers have come and gone at 
Conesus Corners, but they have wrought 
few outward changes. There are more white 
hairs on Judge Balcom^s crown and he stoops 
a little, but his face must have grown young- 
er or brighter, because children smile up 
into it now as he passes, and in the church 
they say Brother Balcom ’’ oftener than 
they say “Judge.” Little Yolande Hop- 
kins dares to run after him with flowers, 
just as she chases the deacon to frolic with 
him. Long ago her feet were as nimble 
as ever, and she never fails to assure Dr. 
Grantley that he “ must h^ve glued her all 
together as good as new, for she can’t And 
any cracks.” 

In the old homestead Eunice goes con- 
tentedly about, at peace with herself as with 

313 


314 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


all the world ; Uncle Zeb Potter tells her 
that a ‘‘forgivin’ spirit and a lively child 
in her house ” have made her much more 
lovable and ‘‘get-at-able.” 

The old man often stopped at the Hop- 
kins house, and one Wednesday evening, 
having dropped in after prayer-meeting, he 
said to Eunice, 

“ You had a talk with that Grantley girl ; 
didn’t you find her a downright sensible 
critter for one of her age — real womanly, 
and pretty too, as far as that goes ?” 

“ Yes ; the doctor did well by her when he 
sent her to Glenthorpe. It is a school con- 
ducted on Christian and common-sense prin- 
ciples. I wonder if Helen is going back ?” 

“For certain she is; she’s only home for 
vacation. Mrs. Tibbits says she’s got three 
years more to stay, and then she is goin’ to 
be a school-marm herself. How much more 
they do stuff into girls’ heads now-a-days 
than they used to 1 They ain’t such a pre- 
cious sight handier, though. My old lady 
was equal to the best on ’em in her time, but 
she wasn’t up in any ’ologies, unless it was 
a sort of good old Puritan theology. She 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 315 

could spin and cook, sing like a lark, pray 
like a saint (she’s good at any of them now), 
hitch up a horse and milk a cow. But times 
are a-changin’ ; folks is a-gittin’ — a sort of 
gittin’ on ; and whereas they did one thing 
once, now they do some other.” 

‘‘ It seems as if Dr. Grantley would like 
Helen to keep house for him after she grad- 
uates,” put in Eunice. Mrs. Tibbits is as 
good as the day is long, but she is too simple 
to be very companionable to Dr. Grantley.” 

Uncle Zeb smiled to himself, and contin- 
ued to smile so mysteriously that Eunice 
pounced on him exactly as if he had said 
something absurd : 

You’ll find yourself mistaken on that 
point now, Mr. Potter !” 

We’ll see what we’ll see, Miss Hopkins.” 

‘‘To be sure, she is a great deal better 
than I ever supposed she would be — she 
walks about her room — but that does not 
make a strong woman of her.” 

“ The doctor says he don’t want her for a 
housekeeper — that Mrs. Tibbits is good for 
years yet, and the art of housekeepin’ won’t 
die with her. Servants are plenty, but wo- 


316 


DB. GBANTLEY^S NEIGHBOBS. 


men like Marier Wells are not. She has 
stood out pretty well, but you’ll see if he 
don’t convince her yet that it is her duty 
to marry him. /set him on that track. I 
knew Marier loved him, for he’s grown wor- 
thy of love, and he has shown his real sin- 
cerity to her ; but, love or no love on her 
part, she refused to marry him — refused out 
and out: he told me so.” 

‘‘Well, that ought to end it. I rather 
think if I said ‘ No,’ a man would under- 
stand me.” 

“ Exactly, Miss Hopkins. Oh, he under- 
stood her like a book, but it didn’t make 
any difference with him ; that’s all. When 
the doctor sets out to do a thing, I’ve no- 
ticed he’s apt to succeed.” 

Eunice paused in wiping a china cup and 
meditated before she returned : 

“Well, then. Uncle Zeb, I hope he will 
succeed. In nine cases out of ten I’d dis- 
approve of the whole thing, but Maria 
would make any man better and nobler ; 
to have her in one’s house would be like — 
like — I don’t know exactly.” 

“ Like flowers openin’ the year ’round, or 


DB. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 317 

birds singiii’ soft and unexpected, or sweet 
church-music on days when the east wind 
makes a body feel sort of ugly,” said Uncle 
Zeb, supplying her lack of imagination. 

‘‘ Yes, she is all of that. Sometimes I 
think that, next to Mr. Halsay, Maria has 
influenced more people for good than any 
one at the Corners ; and she don’t do it so 
much by talking (she ain’t much of a talk- 
er), but by bein ^ — just by being.” 

“ What a good lecture that was of Mr. 
Halsay’s to-night!” broke out the deacon 
suddenly. “ I was a-thinking how beautiful 
it was, .and yet simple enough for me to tell 
it to our little girl here, when Judge Balcom 
said to me, coming home, that it was more 
wonderful than anything he ever found in 
science — this one truth of Christ’s gospel 
that the minister dwelt on to-night.” 
Uncle Zeb answered reverently, 

“I suppose the grandest and the truest 
things always be the simplest and the near- 
est to us; but it takes some of us all our 
lives to And it out. The few who see and 
know all this earliest we call saints or fanat- 
ics or poets, as it happens.” 


'318 DR. GBANTLEY’S NEIGHBORS. 

That same evening that Eunice and Uncle 
Zeb were enjoying their harmless chat about 
him, Dr. Grantley was enjoying a more earn- 
est talk with Maria Wells. The doctor was 
earnest and Maria was all aglow with atten- 
tion and responsive interest in his new 
thoughts of life and its responsibilities. As 
he spoke of his opportunities for helping his 
fellow-men and doing good, her eyes spark- 
led with a glad approbation. 

“ Yes, indeed,’’ she said. How much 
happier and more satisfying your life is now 
than it was!” 

“ Yes, I have a quiet conscience,” returned 
the doctor, ‘‘ but I know how I could be much 
happier.” 

Maria resumed her neglected sewing with 
great diligence and a very brilliant com- 
plexion. 

‘‘ You do not know how much I have en- 
joyed this brief vacation visit of Helen’s. 
My house is kept in perfect order by Mrs. 
Tibbits, but it is not a home; it is very 
desolate.” 

‘‘ Helen has developed into a very intelli- 
gent, charming girl,” put in Maria, going on 


DR. QRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 819 

with a brisk enumeration of the many good 
qualities she had observed in the young per- 
son under consideration. 

The doctor listened patiently until Miss 
Wells spoke of the time when Helen would 
make his home more attractive. 

That time will not come/^ he answered. 

She has three years more of school ; then 
she wishes to teach ; then, probably, she will 
marry or go on a mission or — do anything 
but come here. No,’’ he continued dolefully, 
“ I suppose I am very selfish and unreason- 
able. I do not deserve happiness after the 
hard, selfish life I have lived. I ought to 
be for ever grateful for the goodness I have 
received at the hands of the Lord, and 
should not ask continually for this happi- 
ness of a home such as other and better 
men enjoy.” 

Dr. Grantley was sincere, but if he had 
been artful to the utmost he could not have 
more surely furthered his cause with this 
true-hearted woman, who immediately must 
prove to him that he had a right to be hap- 
py. When she had made out a beautiful 
case the doctor struck ofif on a line somewhat 


320 


DR. GRANTLEY^S NEIGHBORS. 


like this : If a man under the circumstances 
she mentioned had a right to happiness, and 
only one person of his acquaintance could 
make him happy, ought not that person to 
feel it a duty — But here he diverged, and 
for the rest there was much more special 
pleading than logic. Nevertheless, this par- 
ticular evening’s discussion could not have 
been without results, for the very next day 
UncJe Zebadiah Potter went directly from 
Dr. Grantley’s office to Eunice Hopkins’s 
kitchen and triumphantly chuckled, 

I told ye so.” 


THE EXD. 




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